


Cardverse: The Complete Series

by missmollyetc



Series: Cardverse [7]
Category: Numb3rs
Genre: Compilation, Ereader Friendly, M/M, Minor Violence, Multi, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-16
Updated: 2014-09-16
Packaged: 2018-02-17 16:52:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2316683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmollyetc/pseuds/missmollyetc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All the stories in the Cardverse series in one post to make it easier to download to an e-reader.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cardverse: The Complete Series

The Business Card Part One by missmollyetc

Summary: One kick to get in the door, two seconds to step inside, three bullets to the chest.

Part 1 of Cardverse

One.

It really wasn't as big a deal as the Bureau wanted to make it. Even if you did your job well, the chances were pretty good that _someone_ was going to get hurt. Mandatory therapy wouldn't erase that fact, and neither would this 'Doctor Weber' he'd been assigned to visit.

Don grimaced, choking back the knot in his gut with another swallow of alcohol. With his other hand, he pushed the doctor's business card parallel to the bottle of good whiskey he kept hidden behind the cooking oil no one used. He clunked his glass beside it, and stared at his uneaten sandwich, avoiding his own reflection in the dinner table.

He shouldn't have come home. He wasn't in any state to be around people. He'd even bypassed McGinty's with David and Terry after work, but Don's hands had steered the car directly to his stash at home, rather than the apartment.

Something clattered in the kitchen, and Don's hand went to his empty holster. Charlie came through the kitchen door into the dining area, and smiled. "Hey, what are you doing in my house?" he asked.

"What?"

Don covered the business card with his palm. Charlie stepped forward and around the table. His long-fingered hand wrapped around the seat next to Don. He sat down, slinging an arm over the backrest, careless of his limbs in a way he never was at the office. Don moved his foot away from Charlie's toes, but the poking followed him. He frowned, and it stopped.

Charlie leaned over and picked up the closest half of Don's sandwich.

"Sure, go ahead," Don grumbled.

Charlie shook his head, grinning around a mouthful of ham. There was a smudge of black grease across his forehead. Don tucked his thumb into his palm. Charlie wasn't a kid anymore. He didn't need help cleaning up.

"Thanks," Charlie said. "You know swinging a hammer isn't as easy as it looks? There's all these variables to compute before you even start the upswing. It's--it's really quite fascinating. First of all, you have to calculate the amount of pressure needed to--"

"Yeah, okay." Don raised one hand. His lips threatened to curl into a smile, but then the edges of the business card bit into his other palm. "Since when are you into carpentry?" he asked.

Charlie flexed his fingers, and added a self-satisfied tilt to his head nod. He tucked a loose curl behind his ear. "Since...well, I'll tell you later. How come you aren't in that fancy apartment I've heard so much about?"

He'd killed somebody again, so he'd thought it was time to celebrate. What was this, his fourth? He should expect that set of steak knives in the mail any day now.

"...I got hungry," he said.

"I can see that," Charlie said, setting down the crust of Don's sandwich. "Can I have your pickle?"

"Sure," Don said. He picked up his glass, letting the alcohol scour his mouth before swallowing. The burn made him shiver. "Hey!"

Don grabbed Charlie's wrist. The half-full glass clattered to the floor, whiskey splashing cold on his ankle. Charlie very slowly unwrapped his fingers from the neck of Don's whiskey bottle. His wrist bones realigned underneath Don's grip. His skin felt warm.

"Don?" Charlie asked.

His eyes widened with every breath. Don tightened his hold, swallowing the bitter taste in his mouth. His fingers twitched. Slowly, Don brought their joined hands to the table. He licked his lips, starting and stopping before he'd even conjured the words needed to tell Charlie _why_ he didn't need the bottle in front of him, and Don did. How did you tell your little brother you were a killer?

Charlie frowned.

"Look, Don, you don't want me to have a drink, I...I won't have a drink, but c'mon, say something here...you're starting to freak me out." Charlie's smile died stillborn, and Don looked away. "Don?"

Don grit his teeth and forced his hand to open, letting go of Charlie's wrist. His fingers trailed across the back of Charlie's hand and Charlie took a sharp breath.

"Don, what's going on?" That new note, that adult note Don wasn't used to hearing yet, crept into Charlie's voice.

Don shook his head. He'd left the business card exposed. A distraction was in order. "Just having dinner," he said.

Charlie looked down at the crust he'd lain on the table, and nudged a few crumbs with the edge of his fingernail. He exhaled slowly, and that bubble--that fucking wall between Charlie and the real world congealed around him.

Don felt the air siphon from his lungs. He sat back in his chair, arm on the table, and watched Charlie leave the room without even moving a muscle. Okay, this was good. Charlie was thinking about fractions, or fractals, or something like that. Don could get up, collect the card, and be out of the house before Charlie noticed the difference.

He took a deep breath, bracing his hands on the dinner table. His feet felt heavy as lead. Charlie's hand slid across the table. His elegant fingers pricked on the edges of the business card, and Charlie came back. Don froze, caught mid-rise.

"What's the business card for?" Charlie asked.

Don coughed, shrugging. Charlie tugged on his shirt cuff, and he collapsed back into the chair. He uncapped the whiskey bottle, and wrapped his lips around the mouth, taking a healthy swallow. He hissed the scorch away, and set the bottle down.

"What's it for, Don?"

"Another FBI consultant," he said.

Charlie blinked. He swallowed, and his hands rubbed against each other. "Another mathematician? Why? I thought--"

"No, it's okay, we're...we're happy with your work," Don said. He reached out and put his hand above Charlie's upper arm. "It's a-- _she's_ a psychiatrist. She does work for us occasionally."

"A psychiatrist? For--for a case?" Charlie grinned, and shifted under Don's hand.

Don tried to move his hand away, and for some reason, it descended and latched on instead.

"No, it's, uh,"--he laughed, and Charlie frowned--"it's for me. Actually. Standard procedure."

"Standard procedure for what?" Charlie shifted closer, his elbow on the table, leaning into Don's space. One hand supported his head.

"For, uh, for cases where an agent has used lethal force," Don said. He pressed his lips together, watching Charlie turn white.

Charlie's lips pressed together. His head tilt, curls shivering. His hands knit together, fingers twisting into reddening patterns. Don let go of Charlie's arm, and covered his fingers. He was going to hurt himself if he kept that up.

He waited. Charlie's mouth opened, and closed. He blinked rapidly, calculations spinning behind his eyes. Don began to speak, low and fast, trying to keep Charlie in the here and now, rather than the far and away.

"This is what I do. This is what happens when…when an agent is involved in a shooting where the suspect has been killed, said agent will undergo a term of psychiatric eval--"

"Don!"

Charlie's hand was shaking. Charlie was shaking? No, that was Don. He was shaking and that made Charlie shake, which wasn't in the plan and shouldn't have happened at all. He clenched his hand on Charlie's fingers, wincing as Charlie did, and watched his knuckles whiten until his body was once more quiet and under control.

"Was it Atwood?" Charlie asked. "Did he, did he know the answer was a fake?"

His voice was somber, eyes wide and dark. He looked all of six years old, and Don was struck with the irrational urge to go up to his childhood room and pull the covers over his head. But Charlie wasn't six, and Don was too old to hide.

Charlie breathed out, and Don inhaled reflexively. A curl popped from behind Charlie's ear.

"Someone else," Don said. "Guy called Kirkpatrick. He was holding a gun when we came into the building. We think he and Ballard planned to kill their accomplices and...I mean, it was him or me, so I..."

He closed his eyes, and saw the kill shots in Technicolor flashes. Charlie's fingers wriggled free of Don's grasp. He leaned back, wrapping his arms around his chest. He swallowed heavily, and lifted his chin. Don choked back a very inappropriate laugh. Probably off to his chalkboards again.

Charlie's hand palmed the base of his neck and squeezed. Dry fingers fumbled up his neck to grip the back of Don's head. He blinked his eyes open, surprised all over again at how large Charlie had grown.

"I…Don, I… _Thank you_."

Charlie's other arm shifted to the table for balance as he rose from his chair. Don tried to pull away, and Charlie fought him, tightening his grip. Breath puffed across Don's face, and then lips, slightly chapped, were covering his own. The lips ( _Charlie's_ lips!) pressed firmly against his mouth.

It was…it was a kiss, dry and chaste, and then Charlie's head dipped to the side, and Don's mouth followed, turning with his bro…

His _little brother_.

Don's hand came up, wavering above Charlie's shoulder. He froze, eyes widening as Charlie pulled back. Charlie hovered uncertainly before him. Then leaning forward for, he pressed their lips together again, and stepped back. His ankle whacked the chair out of his path.

He nodded, more to himself than to Don, hand raised to his mouth. He looked up. The tip of his tongue flickered over his lips, and he walked away.

Variations on a Theme by missmollyetc 

Summary: There are multiple variables in every story. A continuation of "The Business Card"

Part 2 of Cardverse

One.

Working with the government had its privileges, such as not having to rely on Don's good mood to get up to the office for a talk. Don had said it himself, he didn't even need a visitor's pass to walk right by security (with a hearty wave to Angelica at the front desk) and straight into the elevator.

Charlie coughed, covering his mouth with a fist, and punched the floor number with the other hand, rather impressed that his fingers weren't shaking.

It wasn't that he didn't _care_ that Don had killed a man, he did. Don had _killed_ someone, and…it was awful, terrible that his brother had ever been put into such a situation. But Don was brilliant in his own field, capable and cool, and in charge. If it had happened, then that man's death had been necessary, and he… He was okay with that. Because it meant Don lived, and that other man, that _criminal_ , that kidnapper of little girls, didn't. There was a very important distinction to be made on that point.

Charlie bit his lip. He hadn't meant to kiss Don.

At least, he hadn't meant to kiss him in any way that could have been taken as…unbrotherly. He'd simply been grateful. Suddenly, violently thrilled that Don was alive and another man was dead.

However, he had still been sane enough to notice that _Don_ wasn't all that happy about it, so he'd refrained from jumping out of his chair, and doing a little dance. He was too old for the Dance of Joy, anyway.

Maybe he should have done the dance, the kiss seemed to have fallen a little flat.

Well, perhaps it was more accurate to say that the kiss had been mutually exclusive, and mostly unresponsive…except for when the guilty thrill of feeling his brother's lips press back against his own, even if it had only been a nanosecond, had caused him to kiss Don again. That brief space in time where Don kissed him back, tasting of bad whiskey, had…changed things.

It reminded Charlie a great deal of Chaos Theory, when the flapping wings of a butterfly half way across the world started a chain reaction culminating in unforeseen penalties in the opposite hemisphere. The first kiss could have been passed off as brotherly, familial even. It had been close-mouthed, innocent, and performed without any shred of carnal intent on the part of either participant. It had been more a--an affirmation than anything else. Don alive, Charlie happy.

Their second kiss had been fallout. Because Don had kissed him back, and the new variable changed the equation.

The elevator doors dinged as they opened, and he stepped out into the corridor leading to Don's work area.

It looked like the FBI had lunch around the same time he did. Most of the desks were empty, and it seemed they were saving money on the electricity by shutting off every second light panel. Charlie narrowed his eyes. There were forty-seven light panels installed on the ceiling, each held three tubes of fluorescent gas behind sheets of fiberglass. If every second panel was turned off, then the electricity needed to power the rest was--

He caught himself inches from head-diving into a desk with his shin tangled around a sudden chair. A sheet of paper tore under his hands, and he wound up with his nose on top of an eraser.

Well. That was embarrassing. He was turning into Larry.

A strong hand clapped on his shoulder, startling Charlie into losing his grasp on the desk.

"Whoa! You gotta watch out there," David said.

David's amused face swung into view as he helped Charlie right himself. Charlie coughed, straightening his jacket with both hands, and nodding to the side.

"Hey, if you guys aren't gonna watch where you put your chairs…that's a lawsuit waiting to happen," he said.

David raised a finger. "This is the government," he said. "Don't mention lawsuits."

Charlie grinned, and walked with David back to his desk, two over from Don and Terry's spots. David looked good today, well, he always looked well put together. Something about a man in good shape, and dressed nicely, always caught his eye.

Well, coming from academia, it might simply be the allure of the foreign and exotic. Professors and students weren't exactly taking fashion advice from GQ. Thank God for the women.

Amita, at least, took care with her appearance. She was quite the lady, smart _and_ beautiful. He liked her dark hair, how soft it felt brushing against his shoulder when they worked together. Sweet smelling and thick under his hand when…no, that had been Don.

"What brings you down here?" David asked. He came to a stop by his desk and sat down, pulling out the chair across from him for Charlie.

Charlie shrugged, and took the seat. "Just--just coming for a visit, you know. Nothing special."

He crossed his arms across his chest, and tried to act natural. Nope, nothing to see here. Just coming to talk to his brother about possible…possibilities. Things that needed to be worked out. Charlie looked down. Wow, he really needed to buy some new shoes.

David coughed, and sat back in his chair. "Is this about the shooting?" he asked.

"What? Oh, yeah." Charlie looked up. "I'm a little…concerned. A little."

David was somber, a little wry, but mostly earnest. He sat casually by his desk, one arm along the back of his chair. Charlie found his eyes drawn to the gun half-hidden at David's shoulder.

Don carried a gun like that. He'd worn it the night they'd kissed. Charlie licked suddenly dry lips, and cleared his throat.

"Will he…will he get in trouble?" he asked.

"I…you know, he might," David said. "It's always a possibility."

Charlie jerked forward in his chair. "But he didn't do anything wrong! He…wouldn't."

David nodded. "You know that, and I know that. Don's not the type to cross the line, but a man is dead, and that means a whole machinery has to get in gear."

"Like what?"

David leaned on his knees, his sidearm disappearing beneath his jacket. "He's going to have to go through a process of review. He'll have to stay at his desk for a while…probably see a psychiatrist."

"Dr. Weber," Charlie said. "She called the house this morning."

And hadn't that been a pleasant shock for Dad.

David raised his eyebrows. "Really? That was fast."

"Pretty surprising considering the bureaucracy around here."

"Ha." David smirked, but Charlie suddenly found he wasn't in the mood.

He'd had to talk Dad down from the rooftops about Dr. Weber. Bad enough his oldest son hadn't told him he was going into therapy, but that his oldest son had been _ordered_ into therapy? Charlie predicted a lot of thinly veiled rants in Don's future.

At school, he'd had to teach with the feel of Don's hand still around his wrist and the taste of whiskey in his mouth. He'd actually felt a little drunk when he'd gotten up that morning, then a little hungover after he'd realized the kiss--kisses, really--hadn't been a dream. Charlie touched a finger to his lip.

"Hey, hey Charlie, you okay, man?"

David was crouched next to Charlie's chair, a friendly hand on his arm. He was frowning up at him. Charlie shook himself out of his stupor, and tried to smile reassuringly.

"Yeah, I'm good, don't worry about it. Long night, you know how it is."

David chuckled, and stood, hands on his hips. "I know how it is. You and your brother…like peas in a pod."

Charlie stood, rubbing his hands together, and ducked his head to the side. "I guess so…"

"Yeah, well, I've got to get going," David said. "I've got a lunch date."

He began to walk away, throwing his overcoat on one arm.

"Hey, have you seen Don?" Charlie asked.

David called over his shoulder. "I think I saw him and Terry over by their area! They might have left for lunch, though."

"Thanks!"

The outer door swung shut on David's reply, and Charlie made his way to Don's desk. Three feet away he already knew his brother hadn't been there in at least an hour. There were no coffee cups, no open files…Don probably had taken Terry to lunch, and Charlie was an idiot for not calling first.

He'd been hesitant to call until they'd spoken in person, but…what was Don gonna do? Hang up on his own brother? Even if his own brother had--had kissed him at a time when Don had been obviously quite vulnerable, and probably really drunk, and thus…maybe he didn't even remember the kiss, and Charlie was making a fool of himself in an empty office.

He'd just leave a note.

Pen and paper were scrounged from a drawer underneath Don's impressive collection of paper clips. Charlie bent down over the desk top, pen at the ready, and froze. What the hell was he supposed to say?

_Sorry, I missed you. Dad talked to Dr. Weber, don't come home for awhile?_

_Oops! Did you know that when two objects come into close proximity with each other that those same two objects exert their own magnetic fields which act as attractors, and thus cause collision if not sufficiently restrained by their own inertia? Trust me, it's all science._

_Hey, wanted to talk to you, but you were at lunch. Wanna make out?_

Charlie bit down hard on the end of his pen. Maybe a note was a bad idea. He should go talk to Larry.

Of course, there again lay the problem of what in God's name he would say. And, possibly, how fast Larry would call the asylum.

Charlie scrubbed a hand across his head, and unbent from the desk. This was stupid. He _was_ acting like a fool, and that was a direct refutation of all available data. He had a problem to solve.

Whatever their difficulties, and there had been many, he and Don could work them out. It was all a matter of fitting the information needed to the information already obtained, and then they'd have their answer. Of course, it would be nice if both he and Don were in the room when that--

A flash of blonde hair caught Charlie's eye. He looked to his right, and saw Terry and Don, sitting in the glass-encased conference room, files spread between them. Charlie smiled, and moved away from Don's desk, stepping in their direction. He idly popped the pen in his mouth for safe keeping. He was always losing his pens.

This was perfect. He was going to see Don. They were going to talk about everything, about killing a man, about the kisses. Most importantly, he would remind Don that, no matter what, they were brothers, family, and that was never going to change even if--

Don was kissing Terry.

Why did that hurt?

Charlie let his hands fall on the metal bar bisecting the two plates of glass making up the wall, and watched his brother kissing Terry. His hand was tangled in her hair, his mouth sealed on top of hers. He looked desperate, intent… They looked good together. Right.

Suddenly, Don lurched back into his chair, Terry's fist in his stomach.

Charlie did a little dance.

Inside the glass room, they were speaking--well, Terry was speaking and Don was paying really close attention. She didn't look happy. In fact, she seemed sad more than anything, disappointed. She fixed her hair and her clothes, and then walked to the door, glancing to her left.

She looked straight at him, and Charlie tried to give his best impression of a filing cabinet. Sadly, it didn't seem to work. Her mouth thinned to a tense line, but she walked out the door without saying anything.

Charlie turned his attention back inside the conference room. Don was staring at him, absolutely livid.

Oh, this wasn't good.

Before Charlie could, oh say, make a run for the fire exits, Don was racing out of the conference room and standing very close, his breath husking onto Charlie's face. His tie was undone, the first two shirt buttons open, and his sleeves rolled to his wrists. He looked tired and pained, but mostly, very, very angry.

"What are you doing here?" Don hissed, grabbing on to Charlie's arm and squeezing. "Nobody called you."

Charlie winced at the grip, the fingers digging right into his nerves. He opened his mouth, and rethought his initial response. Better to start with something more general.

"I came to see how you were doing," he said.

Well. That didn't seem to be as innocuous as he'd first thought. Don's eyes widened. His face flushed and then drained of color. He snarled, actually snarled with teeth, and then whirled Charlie around and began pushing him, faster and faster until they were practically running, out of the office, through a corridor Charlie had never taken before.

Oh this was so very bad. Don couldn't really…wouldn't really…it had just been a little kiss! Two kisses! But really, had that last kiss counted? It had been more of an--an afterthought, really. No reason to kick anyone's ass.

The heavy metal door clanged shut behind them, and then it was just him and Don, in a stairwell. Alone in a stairwell. With no witnesses.

"Don, Don, I don't know what you're thinking right now, but I'd like to remind you that we are inside of a public building, and you _are_ a federal agent, a public servant as it were--"

"Shut up," Don said.

Charlie was afraid to turn around. Afraid of what he would see on Don's face, in his eyes, if he faced him. Don was disgusted with him. Thought he was sick, deranged…maybe…maybe even… Charlie swallowed, hard, and thought fast.

"Sure, I can shut up, of course I can, I'm just saying, you know, that killing me, or--or whatever you--"

" _Shut up_."

Don shoved him back onto the wall. One foot fell down the top step, and Charlie slipped, but regained his footing without Don noticing. Don was still holding on to his arm, and his other hand came up to clench the loose fabric at Charlie's shoulder. Charlie wondered if he'd have bruises later.

"Shutting up now," Charlie said, nodding so hard his curls bounced across his nose.

The hands on his body clenched, digging into his skin. Don closed his eyes, as if the sight of Charlie made him ill. He was breathing hard.

Charlie ached, a knot twisted in his stomach, in his chest. He wanted to touch Don, put his hands on him, but his limbs wouldn't obey his commands, and he decided it was for the best. Don was already touching him. That was enough.

"Why are you _here_ , Charlie." Don didn't bother framing it as a question.

Charlie opened and closed his mouth. Didn't Don remember?

Don grimaced, and shook his head. He pulled Charlie from the wall and shoved him back, pulled and shoved back, again and again, until Charlie's hands came up to grasp Don's wrists. Charlie's eyes narrowed. This wasn't Don. This wasn't like him at all.

"I…I came to see how--"

"You came to see how I am," Don said bitterly. "How I'm feeling."

Charlie nodded quickly. He licked his lips, and realized he was breathing just as hard as Don, deep, dragging gulps of stale air. A palm pressed against his chest, and he risked looking down to see Don's hand over his heart. He looked up and watched lines appear on Don's face. He was so…hurt. Confused, and yes, angry, but more…

Charlie couldn't think. The air was too thick around them both, confining. He needed to sit down, needed air, and the only thing holding him together were Don's hands, still gripping his body, but not hurting it anymore.

"Damn it, Charlie, how do you… You _kissed_ me, God damn it. You… _kissed_ me."

Charlie wasn't proud of the noise he made just then. He squeaked, actually squeaked, and made a break for the stairs, but Don held firm. His eyes locked onto Don's face, and Don averted his eyes, focusing…God, he was focusing on Charlie's _mouth_.

Charlie's mouth went dry. He felt a little drunk again. Had there been something in the curry he'd had at lunch?

"I had to do something," he said. "You _killed_ a man, Don, and--"

"Don't," Don said.

Charlie matched Don's sudden frown. They were not going to ignore this. He had not been dragged into a stairwell for nothing but the pleasure of being manhandled by his own brother.

"I'm not sorry," he said. "I'm not going to apologize. I'm glad--"

"You're my God damned brother!" Don roared.

The sound waves rebounded in the stairwell, and Don seemed startled. Charlie flexed his grip on Don's wrists, caressing the soft, thin skin underneath his brother's shirt, trying to calm him. It didn't seem to work. Don's nostrils flared, he shoved his face close to Charlie's, and panted through his mouth.

Charlie continued stroking Don's wrists. He listened to his brother's breathing take on an edge of panic, felt how hot Don was against his skin. Don was hurting, deeply hurting, and Charlie wasn't helping.

Then, Don's lips brushed against his cheek. Dry, a little chapped, and something inside Charlie snapped. He tilted his head to the side, sucked Don's lower lip into his mouth, and waited for the world to end.

Don didn't taste like whiskey this time. He tasted like coffee and some kind of danish when Charlie slipped his tongue inside his brother's mouth, encouraged by Don's open mouth. He tried to move closer, and Don shoved him back to the wall.

Don smashed into him, taking over the kiss and forcing Charlie's head back. He bit down on Charlie's tongue and sucked it fiercely. His hips rubbed against Charlie's, and Charlie moaned. His hands ran up Don's arms to his shoulders, wrapping around to draw him closer.

All the fear, all the tension and hurt burned through him, made him want to break inside of Don and find an answering pain. Anything to know he wasn't alone in this, that his brother was right there with him. Charlie's cock hardened, pushing into Don's stomach. He felt Don hard against his hip, and held him when Don began to shake.

Don felt like sin against his body. This wasn't right. Something like this, this heat building between them…there were _reasons_ why what he and his brother were doing was very, very wrong. And the slick, hungry pleasure welling inside of him was first on that list. God, this was his fault. They were here, in the stairwell, wrapped around each other's bodies at Charlie's instigation. He had pushed too far, too hard, and now he was starved for the weight of his brother's body thrusting against his own. His brother had been hurting, and all Charlie could offer was more pain, and he couldn't _stop_.

He tasted so damn good in Charlie's mouth.

Suddenly, Don tore himself away, hiding his face in Charlie's neck like he was the younger brother.

"What am I doing?" he groaned.

Charlie couldn't help himself. He wrapped his calf around Don's leg, and pressed his cock against the hollow in Don's hip. Oh, this wasn't supposed to feel good, but it did, and they were together, which meant...Chaos Theory. An outcome derived from a seemingly unconnected set of variables that when put together revealed an inevitable pattern. Magnetic fields and strange attractors.

"Don. Don," Charlie spoke into his brother's ear. "It's okay."

Don sobbed and pushed him away. He shivered in the sudden cold and watched Don scramble for breath, staring at his body like Charlie was air.

"It's not. It's not okay," he said. "Nothing like this can be okay."

Charlie swallowed. His body yearned towards his brother, and he struggled for control. Don licked his mouth. His hands trembled against Charlie's body, twitching along his chest.

"You're stressed," Charlie said. "I can understand that."

"This is not for you to understand," Don said.

Don's hands stroked over Charlie's shirt, and down his stomach as if in a dream, sending sparks through his body. Charlie shivered, closing his eyes and tilting his face to the ceiling. He rolled his hips against the wall, needing Don's heat against him. Then, he remembered that he came equipped with arms too. He pulled his brother closer, and Don's mouth fluttered across his ear.

"I was doing my job," he whispered, and Charlie shivered again. His eyes stared unblinking at the ceiling. The darkness, the rasp of pain in Don's voice cut through Charlie's skin.

"Killing that man was a part of my job," Don continued. "And you're my brother, and this is wrong."

Charlie shut his eyes. Don's hands worked beneath his clothes. His calluses--from firing a gun, from writing reports, from heaven--scratched against the soft skin of Charlie's stomach. He rocked against Don, desperate suddenly to feel more, the teasing glimpse of skin offered by his brother's hands not enough. He let Don push and pull him where he wanted and then they were thrusting against each other, cock to cock.

God, it was wonderful, horrible, everything like love and too much like punishment. Don's body slammed against his, knocking Charlie's head into the wall. He wound his fingers in Don's hair and moaned, angling for kisses that sank through him like acid. He thrust into Don, fire pooling in his stomach, the pulse of his heart ratcheting up into higher numbers. The pressure of his jeans, and Don's pants, the unrelenting pace. The _noises_ spilling from Don's mouth made him move faster until Don hid his face in Charlie's hair and shuddered, coming in his slacks.

Don's knees buckled, and Charlie took his weight, grinding harder until he came as well, biting down on Don's shoulder to muffle his shriek. For a moment, they were quiet, while the echoes died around them. Charlie rubbed his fingers against Don's back. Don felt like bedrock against him, the only solid thing in a world where butterfly wings could change the course of history.

"Never," Don said, holding Charlie close. "Never again. Never thank me again. Not for that. Not for anything."

Only if Don did the same for him.

The Business Card Part Two by missmollyetc 

Summary: One kick to get in the door, two seconds to step inside, three bullets to the chest.

Part 3 of Cardverse

Two.

An hour after their introductory session, and Don still wasn't quite sure he wanted to go back. Not that he had much of a choice, of course, but still. It was time taken away from his work.

So much time, actually, that he'd had to play catch up over his lunch break. Terry, after an appropriately large coffee bribe, had agreed to help out, and they'd settled quietly into the paper stacks. She, at least, was getting some work done.

Don shook his head at the papers in front of him. He bit the inside of his cheek to shock himself back to focus, but the mug shot of Irene Taylor, art forger, turned into someone else yet again.

Dr. Samantha (please, call me Sam) Weber had turned out to be a petite brunette wrapped in a sharp business suit, and legs that went all the way down to the ground. Don knew this, because staring at her legs (and imagining them when she walked behind her desk) had gotten him through a large portion of their hour-long prelim 'talk.'

They'd exchanged names, colleges, and even favorite sports teams. She was a perfectly lovely woman, and Don found himself quite attracted. Which was only rational when faced with a good looking woman, even one who pried into other people's business like they had a right to the answers.

Intellectually, Don knew assigning an agent to sessions with a psychiatrist was a sound method of assessing whether or not said agent was fit to do his job. Emotionally, he resented the implication that he was nuts. He wasn't nuts, he was...conflicted.

After all, he'd shot--Charlie had kissed him. His _little brother_ (apparently not so little anymore) had stuck his mouth on top of Don's and...and walked off into the sunset like the damned Lone Ranger, or something.

'Thank you.' What the fuck was that supposed to mean? You didn't _thank_ someone for kil--for shooting another human being. You...you certainly didn't kiss them for it, no matter what the action movies said.

Don scrubbed the back of his hand across his mouth for the third time in three minutes, and watched Terry watch him out of the corner of her eye.

She was looking pretty good today. He liked her hair when it floated loose. In the academy, it had been a dark brown and much longer. She'd worn it in a twist, so that when she let it down at night, the locks curled down her shoulders. God, she'd smelled of flowers, and her mouth had tasted like ink because of all the pens she'd chewed...

"How come you stopped that?" he asked.

Terry jumped, but turned in her chair to smile at him. "Well, I..."

She had a smile you felt all the way to your bones. She'd been smiling the first time Don'd ever kissed her back at the academy--right in the middle of a long, involved lecture on the psychology of crime. She could go on for hours, a light in his eyes like a kid with a prize, so excited about some new piece of knowledge that he just had to share, and his smile-- _her_ smile.

Terry. Not Charlie. Don grimaced. God, he was going insane.

"...And Pluto's looking good for my vacation time this year, but I'm not sure if I can get tickets." Terry's mouth pursed, as her eyebrows pushed their way up her forehead.

Don shook his head. "Sorry, what?"

"That's my question, isn't it?"

Terry cocked her head to the side, leaning her elbow on the desk and supporting her chin with one elegant hand. Don's mouth opened a half measure, breath hissing lightly through his teeth. Terry shone even under the horrible fluorescents in the team room. Light curved down the side of her throat, disappearing into the open vee of her blouse.

Then, she poked him in the shoulder. Hard.

"Ow!"

"I _said_ "--she emphasized with another jab--"when did I stop what?"

"Oh...chewing your pens."

Terry blinked. She pulled back, and her hand dropped into her lap. Her nose wrinkled, mouth twitching at the edges.

"I don't bite my pens, Don," she said, a laugh bubbled through her voice. "Is this some kind of Freudian jab?"

He leaned closer, and waggled his eyebrows. "Not bite, _chew_. You used to chew your pens. Back when we were..." He waved a hand between them. "You know."

She nodded, bewildered, but still amused. "Oh, I know. I just don't know what you're talking about. I've never bitten--or chewed--any pen. Even when we were together," she said.

"You're kidding. C'mon, I can..." Don licked his lips, and found the taste of ink still on his tongue. "I remember..."

Terry quirked an eyebrow. "You sure this was me?" she asked.

"Yes," he said flatly.

Terry straightened in her chair, taken aback. Don frowned, and looked down at the table. He picked up his coffee cup, and downed the cold remnants of his espresso.

Terry placed her small, capable hand in the crook of his elbow. "Hey," she said softly. "How'd it go today?"

He started to chuckle and quickly turned it into a cough. Her hand tightened and released, rubbing through his shirt. He tucked his head to the side and saw her eyes widen, then go flat.

"How'd what go?" he asked, though only one thing had actually happened today, and the grapevine was alive and well.

"Your first meeting with Dr. Weber," she said, coaxing him out. Such a sweet, soft voice.

He pursed his lips. He hadn't told anyone the name of his agency appointed shrink. "You two know each other, huh?"

"I know of her," she corrected. "We say hi in the halls, that sort of thing. She seems nice."

"She's a busybody."

"Well, that's her job, isn't it?" Terry said, nodding slowly.

He pulled back abruptly, letting Terry's hand drop off his arm. "I suppose so," he said.

Terry startled and then composed herself in her chair, only her eyes remained alert. She placed her hands in her lap and crossed her legs. Her voice took on a dry cast, a coaxing hook that sounded remarkably like her friend Dr. Weber.

"You look like you haven't been sleeping, Don. Have you?"

He blew air out of his mouth, looking away. "I had a late night," he said. "Nothing unusual for this office."

"That's true," Terry said. "But we wrapped our big cases a week ago, Don. Don't you think it's time to sleep in a little?"

Don closed his eyes against the sudden muzzle flash, but red bloomed behind his eyelids, so he opened them. Terry sat quietly at his side, waiting for his answer. He ground his teeth, tightening his jaw.

"I don't need this from you," he said.

"Don't need what from me?" she asked.

"This!" He waved his hand through the air and brought it down to rake through his hair. "This... _inquiry_ you're starting up. Have I been _sleeping_ , am I _okay_ … I got enough of that this morning, all right?"

His free hand drummed on the table, and Don forced it to still. He swallowed a few times, tasting something sour and wishing it was ink. Terry watched him, then she nodded seriously.

"All right Don," she said. "If that's how you want to work this, than I'll go along with it."

He nodded sharply. "That's what I want."

Was it so much to ask to be left alone? Damn, kil--shoot someone in the line of duty, and suddenly everyone got chatty.

She raised her hand. "But I want you to realize that there are people in this office--"

He groaned, and Terry raised her voice to overcome his.

"There are people in this office who like you and worry about you, and want you to be happy," she finished.

"Dammit, Terry!" Don slapped his palm against the table. "I am happy! I'm _fine_ and I would appreciate it if everyone would just get off my damn case! I don't need this right now, Terry, I really don't."

Terry looked down at her lap, and her mouth crumpled for a moment. Her hands twisted together, and she looked up. "Then what _do_ you need right now?" she asked.

Don's jaw tensed, teeth grinding. He frowned into her kind, always welcome face, and lunged forward. Their mouths smashed together, stifling Terry's yelp. He gripped the back of her head to hold her in place, pressing his tongue against the wall of her teeth, and pushed onward gracelessly. She tasted like stale coffee, like him.

Terry's fist slammed into his stomach, and Don dropped back into his chair, gasping for air. She stood, looming above him. Her hair was in disarray, lips swollen, and her nostrils flared with each breath. Don groaned and rubbed his eyes with his palm.

"I'm going to forget this happened," Terry said, quietly fixing her hair and straightening her blouse.

She glanced out the plate glass walls, and back to him. Don reflexively looked out as well, and was more grateful than he could imagine for how the office cleared out during lunch. She waited calmly until Don nodded, looking down at his lap.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"I am too," she said, and walked towards the door. As she pulled the handle, she glanced to the left, over Don's head, and stiffened.

Don twisted in his chair. Charlie stood in front of the glass wall, unblinking, looking inside. A pen hung from the corner of his mouth.

***

The world seemed to flex around Don, focusing tunnel-like on the unreadable look on Charlie's face. He was dimly aware of Terry leaving the room, and then he himself was outside, crowding into Charlie's space, smelling chalk and ink and the curry he must have had for lunch.

"What are you doing here?" Don hissed, grabbing on to Charlie's arm and squeezing. "Nobody called you."

Charlie flinched under his grasp, but didn't back away. "I came to see how you were doing," he said quietly.

Wasn't that just the question of the hour.

Don's lips pulled back from his teeth. Red bursts swamped his sight, three in row as his muscles twitched under his tightening skin. He pushed Charlie backwards, forcing him to turn around, and frog marched him into the stairwell.

The door clanged hollowly behind them both. Charlie was breathing hard, the line of his shoulders trembled underneath his jacket. The muscles beneath Don's hand were tight with strain.

"Don, Don, I don't know what you're thinking right now, but I'd like to remind you that we are inside of a public building, and you _are_ a federal agent, a public servant as it were--"

"Shut up," Don grated. He was going to need dental work if he continued grinding his teeth this much.

"Sure, I can shut up, of course I can, I'm just saying, you know, that killing me, or--or whatever you--"

" _Shut up_." Don whirled Charlie to face him and pushed him flat against the wall at the head of the stairs. His other hand came up to bury itself in the loose fabric at Charlie's shoulder.

"Shutting up now," Charlie said, nodding so hard his curls bounced across his nose.

Somewhere along the way he'd lost the pen, and now a dark spot of ink lurked at the corner of his bottom lip. Don closed his eyes, sucking air desperately into his mouth. This was _Charlie_. Yes, he drove Don crazy, but not like this, never like this. He had to--had to figure out what Charlie wanted, and then get him _out_.

"Why. Are you here, Charlie." Don didn't bother framing it as a question. When Charlie didn't answer, he shook him until Charlie's hands came up to grasp Don's wrists.

"I…I came to see how--"

"You came to see _how I am_ ," Don said. "How I'm feeling."

Charlie nodded quickly. The tip of his pink tongue flickered out over his lips, wetting his open mouth. His chest rose and fell under Don's hand. Don realized his fist had flattened over his brother's chest, palm against his heart. He pressed down to feel the beat under his fingers, the curved bone underneath the surprisingly solid muscle.

"Damn it, Charlie, how do you… You _kissed_ me, God damn it. You… _kissed_ me."

Charlie squeaked. He actually squeaked, and wriggled back against the wall. His eyes locked onto Don's face, and Don found himself looking away, fixing his gaze on the ink spot near Charlie's mouth.

"I had to do something. You _killed_ a man, Don, and--"

"Don't."

He frowned, but Charlie was just as stubborn as Don himself. He persisted, eyes flashing. "I'm not sorry," he said. "I'm not going to apologize. I'm glad--"

"You're my God damned brother!" Don roared.

His voice reverberated in the stairwell, doubling back and attacking his ears. Charlie flexed his grip on Don's wrists, strong fingers stroking beneath his shirt sleeves and over the thin skin covering his veins. Don shoved his face close to Charlie's, breathing in the smell of his brother, and it did nothing to help at all.

Charlie tilted his head to the side, and sucked Don's lower lip into his mouth. Don choked, as teeth nibbled gently and a tongue slipped alongside his own. His hands twisted in Charlie's clothes. He forced his brother back against the wall with his body, snarling into the kiss.

Charlie's hands skittered across Don's arms, kneading his shoulders, wrapping around to draw him closer. Don began to shudder as he felt Charlie harden against his stomach, as he felt _himself_ harden and grind into his brother.

This had to be his fault, his responsibility. Something he'd done, something he'd said that Charlie had misinterpreted and that, ultimately, had led them to this point. If he'd been prepared enough to realize it, then he would have been able to change the situation. But he had to have known, how could he have not _known_? It had to be Don's fault. They were in the south stairwell, the one with the broken security camera. Why else would he have taken Charlie here?

Don tore himself loose from Charlie's mouth, burying his head where his brother's jacket met his neck. His mouth tasted like ink. Oh God, his _brother_. And Terry back in the office. Terry, who had always been there for him. Charlie, who looked up to him.

"What am I doing?" he groaned, flinching when Charlie wrapped his calf around Don's leg. Oh, this wasn't supposed to feel good. His hips wanted to move forward, wanted _grind_ against Charlie. He couldn't let himself, this was--

"Don. Don," Charlie panted into his ear. "It's okay."

Somehow, he found the strength to push away, to hold Charlie back. Don fought to get air into his lungs, trying to look anywhere but at Charlie's wet mouth. His thumb rubbed back and forth across the exposed skin at Charlie's collar.

"It's not. It's not okay," he said. "Nothing like this can be okay."

Charlie swallowed. His eyes were glazed, hips shifting forward. Don refused to acknowledge what that did to him.

"You're stressed," Charlie said. "I can understand that."

"This is not for you to understand," Don said.

His hands moved across Charlie's chest as if pulled by invisible strings, kneading down his stomach. Charlie shivered, closing his eyes and tilting his face to the ceiling. Don couldn't look at him. He let Charlie draw him closer so he wouldn't have to. Instead, he spoke into Charlie's ear. Someone had to say it, and someone had to hear, and maybe if he said then Charlie would understand, and it wouldn't be…it wouldn't _hurt_ as much as it felt so good.

"I was doing my job," he whispered, making Charlie shiver. "Killing that man was a part of my job. And you're my brother, and this is wrong."

His hands wormed underneath Charlie's clothes and sunk into the warm skin he found. A shift brought him between Charlie's legs, and a pull aligned their groins. Don pushed against Charlie, thrusting against his brother's… Damn everything to hell, he was rubbing himself off on his brother. He was getting off to the sound of Charlie moaning in his ear, the feel of him under Don's hands, the sucking pressure of Charlie's mouth against his own and it was good, so good that it felt like hell as flames licked their way up and down his spine.

He keened into Charlie's ear, and Charlie wailed in his, driving Don to thrust faster, to drive against Charlie until their sounds matched each other as their movements did. Don squeezed his eyes shut, burying his nose into Charlie's curls, and shook himself to orgasm. His knees buckled, and Charlie took his weight, grinding harder until he came as well, biting down on Don's shoulder to muffle his shriek.

"Never," Don said, holding Charlie close. "Never again. Never thank me again. Not for that. Not for anything."

Interlude: The Daily Grind by missmollyetc 

Summary: Don tried, but it can't get better without getting worse. Takes place between parts Two and Three of "The Business Card."

Part 4 of Cardverse 

It hadn't happened. And even if it had, no one could prove it.

Every lamp and fixture in his apartment was turned on. The reflection of the lights had blinded him three times before he learned to sit very still. The tv was turned to the local news. His suit jacket was in the closet, and his tie was nearby on the floor somewhere.

Don did _not_ know what the inside of his brother's mouth tasted like.

He was thinking about dinner.

He did _not_ know what the solid muscles of his brother's body felt like under his hands.

A new Indian place had just opened up--he'd gotten a flyer in the mail yesterday. It didn't look too expensive.

He _did not_ know the desperate sounds his brother made when he came.

He could order pizza again, mushrooms and sausage sounded pretty good. Better than curry, actually.

Charlie's mouth had been spiced with cumin and mint leaves and the damn ink, and--Don was _not_ sitting at his kitchen table, thinking about his brother's mouth, or his body, _or_ his sounds. He wasn't. It hadn't happened.

Don outlined a square on the countertop. His eyes followed the path of his fingertip as he traced and retraced the pattern. The soles of his feet were firmly planted on the linoleum floor. The newscaster on the tv switched to the weather report.

He thought maybe Indian.

***

Dr. Weber sat across from him at the head of the conference room table. Their chairs were swiveled to face each other, with the door behind Don's back--not that that bothered him.

His skin itched beneath his shirt, and he kept his hands from scratching under the collar by crossing them over Terry's bruise on his stomach. His Adam's Apple bobbed against the knot in his tie.

Their first session had been introductory. Dr. Weber had gotten his measure, and Don had taken hers. So far, the second session had been…groundwork, the particulars of the case. He hadn't said much. There wasn't much to say.

"Really, Don, don't you think this hour would be more productive if we actually talked?"

Dr. Weber's voice was a peculiar mix of detachment and compassion. She leaned towards him in her chair, her supple body curling around itself. Her dark hair, pulled back at the temples, slipped down her wide collar. Her skirt rode a good two inches above her crossed knees.

He smiled tightly. If the interview remained friendly, then the report would be favorable. He had to keep that in mind.

Dr. Weber smiled as well. He'd quickly learned to hate that, even after only an hour and a half in her company. She never showed any teeth. Her lips stretched across her face, thin and curled just a bit at the edges, and her eyes observed every move.

A headache began to pinch behind his eyes. The lights in the conference room weren't bright enough. He wanted to squint.

Don hooked one foot around his chair leg. The pad of paper on Dr. Weber's lap was half-filled with notes. With a little effort, Don could read upside down, but she wrote small, and he'd been trying for the past twenty minutes with no luck.

She re-crossed her legs for the seventh time. He heard the slight, dry rasp of her hose as it stretched across her calf muscles. The sharp toe of her leather pump stabbed in his direction.

If Dr. Weber thought he just liked her legs, well…point for his side. If she believed he was distracted by her good looks, _she_ might get diverted, and _he_ might get through the damn sessions with his dignity intact…and a date wouldn't be the end of the world.

Actually, it might be nice, even if she made his skin crawl. Something--Don swallowed--normal.

"You were going to tell me about how you felt," Dr. Weber prompted.

He blinked rapidly. "Felt? About what?"

What had she heard about Charlie?

"About working with Agent Lake on this particular case."

His eyes wanted to narrow. Don schooled his breathing. This was just like a suspect interrogation, the first one to get rattled lost. If he was going to pass Dr. Weber's examinations, plus the review board, and get AD Marlow's green light, then Don _had_ to maintain control.

"I felt fine working with Terry--Agent Lake," he said, keeping his voice even. "While the Ballard case was difficult, I think she did her job well…excellently in fact."

Dr. Weber raised a carefully manicured eyebrow. An equally well-manicured fingernail tapped her notepad. Her maroon-tinted mouth curled at the edges.

"And knowing that Terry had a past history with one of the suspects didn't bother you at all? She _did_ receive a reprimand for her past behavior concerning Mr. Ballard."

Don ground his teeth, and Dr. Weber wrote something down. He stopped.

"I was…aware of Agent Lake's past involvement with Ballard, yes," he said, watching her write. "And I was completely impressed by the professional and above board way she conducted herself throughout the course of the investigation."

The hell did Dr. Weber want with Terry? Hadn't she had enough to put up with lately? It wasn't her place to decide Terry's fitness to work, and…

"I had, and still maintain, full confidence in Agent Lake's abilities as a Federal agent," he said.

The note taking paused. Dr. Weber sat back in her chair. Her slim fingers tapped the head of her pen on her papers. She looked at him. He'd never seen her blink.

"That's good, Don," she said. "Now, what about your performance?"

Don's eyes narrowed. "What about it?"

"Was your performance…"--she consulted her notes--" 'professional' and 'above board?' "

He straightened in his chair, and his fingers fluttered on its arm. "Yes."

He'd entered the suspects' house via the front door, announced his presence and identified himself as an FBI agent.

"Really?" she asked. "You mentioned before that the case was difficult. Was it difficult _solely_ for Terry?"

"I'd be lying if I said yes."

Kirkpatrick had brandished a gun.

She smiled again. His toe tapped on the floor, and he froze, startled at the noise. Dr. Weber took notes.

"What about the case was difficult?"

"They'd kidnapped a little girl from her sixth birthday party. You don't think that's a little tough to take?"

He had shot Kirkpatrick.

Dr. Weber leaned forward again. She flipped the uncapped pen in her hand against her opposite palm, and a well of ink blossomed on her skin.

"Is that all?" she asked.

Don blinked, and did not lick his lips. "Isn't that enough?"

Three to the center of the chest. Textbook execution, just like on the firing range. End of story.

***

Terry was naked, flaunting her smooth, pale skin and mischievous smile. The slim line of her body settled across from Don on the bed. Strands of hair dangled down her chest. Her fingers toyed with the ends as she slid her hands down her shoulders. She cupped each breast in her hands, and squeezed. Her nipples tightened to hard points.

Don reached down, and took his cock in his hand, stroking as Terry's head fell back against the mattress. She moaned, and her legs spread across the bed…

The answering machine clicked and whirred to life. Don ignored it. Terry walked her fingers down her stomach, and the smell of cordite smoke filled Don's nose, souring his mouth. He squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated harder, ignoring the smell, blocking the light, and…

"Agent Eppes? This is Dr. Weber's office. We're sorry to have missed you. Just calling to confirm your appointment with her at…two o'clock tomorrow afternoon. Have a good day!"

Don snarled, hitting the back of his head against the pillow, and glaring in the direction of the answering machine. He kicked the folded pile of his clothes off the end of the bed. His half-hard erection softened in his hand. He rubbed the top of his thigh, and blew air through his nose.

The phone was off tonight. So was the tv. Noise, people, it was…too much. Not enough. He talked all the time, answering to people who took notes and evaluated his every move. Questions, and more questions. Every fucking week with Dr. Weber, and every fucking day…not even his desk was safe.

Why was he breathing hard? Was his breathing too shallow? What questions made him sweat, and which got under his skin. What did he do when confronted with autopsy reports? Coroner's photos weren't too much for him, were they? How did he feel about his co-workers. About his--about his brother. Did he like working with Charlie? Was Charlie an asset? Could he take the shot again? _Would he take the shot again?_ Talk to me Don, tell me what's bothering you. _I'm here to help_. Nobody was ever fucking satisfied.

His skin itched, an awkward pulse of arousal stunted in his veins.

It had been a routine house invasion. He'd been perfectly in the right, and--Dr. Weber was a fucking vulture, picking over dead cases for rotten treasure. It was time to move on, time to--time for Terry to stop…looking at him as if he was going to…

Don ground his teeth, and widened his eyes, soaking in the bright lights of the apartment. He'd turned on the lamps, and taken off their shades, the moment he'd gotten home, except for the little fluorescent ones above the kitchen sink. They'd burned out overnight.

He could turn on all the lamps in the place until there was nowhere left for him to hide, and he _still_ couldn't figure out what the _fuck_ was wrong with him.

Terry. Fuck, he even felt guilty for jerking off and thinking about her after what he'd done. She was…she hadn't deserved to be treated that way. Not by him--not by anyone, but most definitely not by him.

He stared at the ceiling, counting the lines in the paint. Terry was the least of his problems, of his… God, he was such a fuck up.

Charlie. What was he going to do about Charlie?

He could--it could _never_ happen again. That it had happened once was bad enough, but…he…he'd taken them back home after--afterwards. To get cleaned up, and a change of clothes, and…he'd touched him.

He'd touched Charlie's hip, traced the slight dip of bone sticking out from Charlie's ruined jeans, and…Charlie had shivered, staring back at his face.

Don's eyes slipped half-closed. His thighs settled against his blankets. His fingers rubbed at the edge of his pubic hair.

Charlie had sat down, forcing Don's hand to slide up his side, and curl around his upper body. Charlie's own hand had risen to cup Don's, then slid up his forearm. His blunt fingernails scraped into the inside of Don's elbow, poking the thin skin.

Don's cock hardened against his leg. He sucked in a deep breath. The apartment lights beat hot against his bare skin, shooting red flares through his eyelids.

Charlie'd been breathing hard, shaking as his erection tented his jeans. Don had fallen by the side of the bed, pressing his fingers deep into the muscles of Charlie's torso. He'd bent his head, and licked the skin above Charlie's nipple, flicking the tip of his tongue at the hard nub, feeling it tighten. He'd closed his mouth over the nipple and bit. Charlie had carded his hand into Don's hair, clutching him close and moaning.

He rubbed his hand along the shaft. His feet dug into the mattress, pushing him up into the pressure. God, it was good, and it hurt so _much_ …

The click of the answering machine barely registered in his hearing. Don thrust into his fist, twisting his fingers at the head while Charlie shuddered underneath his mouth, and--

"Don, this is your father. Are you there this time?"

He froze, flattening his hand against his cock. His head pounded. Muzzle flash stabbed his eyes.

"…Guess not. Now, I don't know what's going on with you right now, but I got a call from a Dr. Weber a couple days ago…wanting to talk about you and…well, I told her anything I needed to say about you I could damn well say to your _face_ , but you know how these shrinks are--pick, pick, pick until they get their way. I--I didn't tell her anything, but--"

*Beep!*

Don covered his face with his hands. Dad. His dad. _Their_ dad. What would he think? Say? How could--she was talking to Dad, now. Dr. Weber was fucking trolling for gossip from his _family_. Who was next? Charlie?

He didn't think he could classify what erupted from his throat as a laugh. Oh, the stories Charlie could tell her. If he hadn't already called the cops.

Maybe _he_ should call the cops. There were names for people like him.

"Don? Don? Look, this damn machine of yours cut me off, but…I want you to know I'm there for you, if--if you ever need to talk. …All right? All right. And--look, I'm proud of you, son. You do good work."

The pillow made a very good hiding place, once he'd wrapped it around his head, but Dad's message still pierced his hearing.

"Listen, I know you and Charlie have had your differences, but if--for some reason--you can't talk to me? I think…I think this case got to Charlie as well, and…he's been very quiet lately. Very focused on his work, if you know what I mean, so…I think it might be a good idea if you two talked. Yep, okay, that's all! Bye."

Don rolled over onto his stomach, pressed his face into the mattress, and shook.

***

Coffee in either hand, he skirted around the side partition between his and Carol Pratchett's desks, making sure to keep his head down in case Carol felt like chatting at him again. Terry was working at her computer, transcribing her backlog of interview notes into a report. Her hair was kept back at the temples by a pair of barrettes, leaving the rest to fall down her neck.

"Hey," he said, standing at the edge of her desk. The heat of the coffee in the thin take out cups began to sting his palms.

Terry's head bent slightly in his direction. Her typing slowed, and then sped up again.

"Hey," she said.

She reached out, and flipped a page.

He set the coffee cup--two creams, no sugar--at her elbow, and sat down at his desk. He squeezed his own cup until the plastic lid squeaked, letting the burn sink into his flesh. Coffee bubbled out of the drink opening.

His stomach protested at the sight, and he set the cup aside. It lined up nicely next to his keyboard, and the double stacks of files cluttering up his workspace. Desk duty: brainless, gunless, and dickless.

FBI Agent Suffocated in Freak Paperwork Accident would be the headline in tomorrow's newspaper. No matter how much he typed, the stacks never got any lower. Evidence reports, ballistics reports, situation reports…if criminals had to process half the red tape _he_ had to, no crime would ever be committed. Don shuffled the papers covering his desk into some sort of order, and flopped the stack into his out-box.

His eyes felt gritty from lack of sleep, and hours of typing, filing, and signing off on three months of accumulated paperwork. A headache had riveted screws into the base of his skull two hours ago, and not even four aspirin had managed to undo the damage. And Terry wouldn't talk to him.

Or, she would, but whenever Terry opened her mouth, she used Dr. Weber's voice. It sent chills down his spine. And, when he tried to talk to her, the bruise on his stomach hurt all over again.

He squinted at the closest stack of folders, and poked the topmost file cautiously. Weren't they supposed to be in the computer age by now?

"Don…"

He swiveled his chair at the sound of Terry's voice. She was facing him, smiling a little, and Don let himself smile back, feeling the muscles creak in his jaw. For a moment, he felt the spark, the Don and Terry Spark, capable of surviving time, break-ups, and long distances. Then she crossed her legs, and laced her fingers over her knee.

"I want to thank you for the drink," she said.

Don nodded. His fingers fidgeted on the arm of his chair. Terry's eyes caught the movement. Her eyebrow quirked.

Terry sighed, and bit the corner of her lip. She looked to her left, out over the office, and then back to him. Don reminded himself not to rub his stomach bruise.

" _And_?" he asked, finally.

" _But_ , I don't think…" She took a deep breath. "I don't think you should be bringing me coffee right now. I think--"

"I was being _friendly_ , for--"

"Were you?"

Her eyebrows snapped upwards, and Don's mouth clamped shut. His jaw clenched.

"I think we need a little distance right now, Don," she said gently.

He snorted. Distance. That was a nice way to put it.

"Don…"

"No, I agree. 'Distance' sounds great."

Terry's eyes narrowed. The light bounced off her watchband, and blinded him momentarily. He blinked away the afterimage. Terry leaned forward, lowering her voice.

"Have you talked to Dr. Weber about kissing me?" she asked.

Don grimaced. "Have you?"

She straightened in her chair, nostrils flaring. Her mouth pressed to a thin line.

"I don't talk to your shrink," she said.

Well, at least that made two of them. He swiveled his chair back around to face his paperwork, and picked up a pen. He tapped the end against his bottom lip while, behind him, Terry left her desk. He watched her leave, holstering her gun on her way out the door.

***

He needed better light bulbs. The one in his hand was the fourth he'd had to replace that day. He looked sideways as he screwed in the fresh bulb, and flipped the on switch.

Two empty bottles on his coffee table. One had fallen and rolled against its neighbor, leaking a stale line of alcohol over his TV Guide. The freshest beer on his coffee table had warmed, but Don swallowed anyway. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and adjusted his tie, making sure the knot pressed exactly at the hollow of his throat. He shook the bottle, almost time for another.

The knocking on the front door almost made him drop both bottle and light bulb on his way to the kitchen. He ignored it. He hadn't ordered dinner.

He tossed the burnt out light in the trash with the others, and swallowed the last of his warm beer. The bottle made a satisfying missile, shattering the thin glass bulbs.

The knocking increased as Don opened the fridge and took out a fresh bottle. Three down, three more to go. He popped the cap, and opened his mouth, tilting the alcohol down his throat. Whoever was at the door, he was persistent.

"Don? I know you're in there!"

He swallowed deeply, clenching his free hand into a fist against his thigh. Charlie's voice was a little muffled, but it still came through the door like a gunshot. Don's cock shifted in his slacks.

"Dad sent me… He thinks"--nervous chuckle--"thinks we've got something to talk about."

Muzzle flash in his eyes, and Charlie's taste in his mouth. Don kept drinking. His eyes began to water. Finally, he stopped, coughing into his wrist.

Charlie pounded once on the door.

"See! I _heard_ that! You _are_ in there!"

Against his will, Don chuckled. His throat burned, and he swallowed to calm it. He shook his head, and pressed the cold glass against his temple.

This was bad. Why the hell had Dad sent him over? Don grimaced. Dad was always pushing.

Fix the problem. Take care of your little brother. Do your best, and you'll succeed at anything. Well, he was the problem, and taking 'care' of Charlie was hurting Charlie, and Don's best hadn't been good enough for weeks.

"Look, I've been doing some…I've been going over some figures, and…"

The door shook, and Don turned sharply. It sounded like Charlie had kicked the doorframe, hard. Don took a step towards the hall. The light in the apartment threw a stark furniture shadow against the mouth of the entryway. Don swallowed more beer.

"I…I just…c'mon, at least let me tell Dad I saw you."

Don took another step forward. His beer bottle hung loose in his grip. The door thumped again.

"He was upset when you didn't call him back about Dr. Weber. He thinks she wants to talk to him. …Maybe me, as well. He's been griping about it all day."

The bottle bumped against his knee as he walked to the door. Charlie didn't sound right, even through the wood. He… Don squinted. After awhile, all the light hurt his eyes. A headache wriggled in the back of his head, fuzzy with alcohol.

"Don? Open up, okay? Your neighbors are staring at me. Yes, ma'am! I'm still here!"

That was probably Mrs. Green. She was a bit paranoid.

Charlie kicked the door again. "Don, open the door. I think she's calling the police."

Definitely Mrs. Green. Don closed one eye and stared at his door. He leaned his forehead against the wood.

Dad had said Charlie was focusing on his work again. That meant he wasn't sleeping.

"Are--are you there? Are you all right?"

Don knocked his head against the door, and screwed his eyes shut. He spread his free palm against the wood. The beer bottle pressed against his stomach, cold and smooth through his work shirt.

If Charlie wasn't sleeping, then he wasn't eating. He'd done the same thing when Mom died, when Don had left for college, when Charlie was six and stealing away with Don's math book because nobody knew how to talk to him. He hid in his numbers, like they made him invulnerable.

"Sorry, I know you hate that…but…damn it, open the door!"

Charlie wasn't invulnerable. No one was invulnerable. People hurt each other every day with the best of intentions.

"I'm sorry, okay? I'm _sorry_ for…Don…"

Charlie sighed. Don's hand slid to the lock. He drew back the latch slowly.

Charlie didn't deserve this, anymore than Terry had. Don had created their situation. It was up to him to create the escape. He should relock the door.

"I never… This isn't…I'm not good at this."

The door shuddered under Charlie's fist. Don stepped away.

He liked girls. Women, like Terry and Kim. He liked men too, hell, David was a damn distraction some days, but liking men did _not_ mean he wanted to fuck his little brother.

Except he did, and he had, and that meant he'd done something so horrible, no one could ever forgive him.

The first step to solving a problem was isolating the factors involved. There was Charlie, and there was himself. One plus one equaled two, as Charlie put it. So each factor had to be separated, in order to break up the equation. There. Don could do math too.

"You're alive. I'm so happy you're alive. And, I just…I didn't _mean_ to!"

Oh, Lord. Of anyone, Charlie should not be apologizing to _him_.

Don's hand lifted to cup the doorknob.

"I didn't come here with…expectations."

And Don didn't have any. He didn't…what was there to say anymore?

"I just…" Charlie knocked on the door again, three times and then twice. "You know, what? You want me gone, then…you tell me to my face. You open this door, and you throw me out of your building yourself and--Yes, ma'am! The doorman _did_ let me in!"

Don twisted the knob, and pulled.

He opened the door to reveal the back of Charlie's head and the solid line of his shoulders. Charlie dragged a hand through his hair, and then pointed to the right.

" _No_ , I did _not_ give him twenty dollars. I--oh."

Charlie's head whipped around to blink at Don. He swallowed, and his hand dropped to his side. He looked too pale, even for Charlie. There were dark circles under his eyes, and a smudge of ink on the side of his nose.

Don forced his breath to stay even. "Everything's fine, Mrs. Green," he said. "Go back inside."

He heard Mrs. Green huff, and then the slam of her door, but all he saw was Charlie, staring back at him. Charlie looked like he hadn't slept in a week, and what was so damned important that he'd let Dad nag him into visiting?

Don raised his beer bottle. Charlie's eyes followed the path it took to his mouth. He saw Charlie swallow as Don did. Don's groin tightened.

He shouldn't have opened the door. He was a grown man. He was Charlie's big brother. He was making a _mistake_ , compounding his fault, and cloaking the truth in _worry_ for his little brother.

He was sick.

Charlie crossed his arms over his chest, and hunched his shoulders. He kicked the floor with his toe. Don clenched his hand on the doorknob. He could do this. He could fix this.

"Hey," Charlie said.

Don took a deep breath, and felt the apartment lights beating at his body. He could do this. He could do this. What was he going to do?

Don frowned, ignoring Charlie's flinch.

"You gonna let me in?" Charlie asked shakily. "I've been running some sequences--charts, actually, and I think I've got--"

"You've seen me," he broke in.

Charlie's head snapped up. Don's mouth closed, his throat constricted. He coughed, and focused on a point over Charlie's head.

"Go home," Don said.

He started to close the door, and it smacked straight into Charlie's foot. He blinked, and Charlie loomed into focus. Charlie moved closer to him.

"We're having this conversation," he said. "It's either gonna be in the hallway, or in your apartment."

Don closed his eyes, and banged his head against the edge of the door. It felt good, so he did it again, sparks arcing across his eyelids.

" _Stop_ that," Charlie said.

Don cracked his eyes open, and Charlie was close enough to touch.

"It's my apartment," Don said. "If you don't like it, then leave."

Charlie frowned, and Don followed the dip with his eyes, down the tendon in Charlie's throat to the hollow between his collar bones. He licked his lips. Charlie's breath ghosted across his face.

Don felt his skin heat. He felt Charlie touch his hand, the tentative brush of fingertips on his knuckles. Don wanted to close his eyes, but the tilt of Charlie's head begged him to keep looking.

"Why the hell does everybody want to talk at me these days?" Don asked.

Charlie's mouth twisted. "Because you never say _anything_ when you've got a problem!"

"There's nothing to say."

Charlie was here, and Don wanted to lick the hollow of his throat until he spread his legs and begged.

A man was dead, and he'd killed men before. A little girl was back with her family, and that didn't happen as much as he would like.

Don had done his job well. It was in all the training manuals. This was his reward.

Charlie chuckled a little, and Don flinched. A hairline fracture grew in the pit of Don's stomach. The lights picked at his skin, burning through his clothes. He watched Charlie drag a hand through his hair. He looked at him, and Don moved back into the apartment.

Charlie shot forward over the threshold. He kicked the door shut behind him, and leaned on it.

"You think I _want_ to talk about this?" he asked. "Damn it, Don! I'm _tired_! I--you sure you've got enough light in here? You could signal MIR with this array."

He squinted to the side, into the light drenching the apartment. Don blinked, staring at the tight edge to Charlie's mouth. He shook his head, and backed into the closet door. Separate, isolate. They'd been separate before, and they could do it again.

"I told you to go home," he said.

Charlie coughed, tugging on the hem of his t-shirt. "Yeah, I know, hey, you pay electricity on a monthly basis, so with six plus four--no. I'm concentrating here."

Charlie moved past him, grabbing his elbow and tugging Don out of the hallway into his own living room. Heat bloomed at the point of contact, sharp and scorching. Don bit the inside of his cheek hard, and jerked his elbow out of Charlie's hand. He stepped back to the edge of his couch. Charlie stared at the beer bottles on the coffee table, the bare-bulbed lamps flaring in every room and corner.

The fracture in the pit of Don's stomach expanded, jagged at the edges, while the knot at his throat contracted. The light was supposed to help him face his problems, not exacerbate them. He could see everything. Every crease in the thin fabric of Charlie's clothes, every drooping curl, the shift of his muscles as he fidgeted under Don's stare, and on down to the fine tremor in Charlie's fingertips.

"I need more information," Charlie said.

"You can borrow my encyclopedia."

Don cackled into the mouth of his bottle. The alcohol slipped down his throat, barely spilling past the knot strangling his throat. He pressed his lips together to keep it from coming back up. Control, separation, more beer. Name of the game plan.

"That's funny. That's funny, and you're joking…that's a good thing…" Charlie stepped forward, and Don raised a hand.

"Just stay over there," Don said. He clutched his beer.

Charlie stopped moving. "Don, I want--"

"I don't care," he said. "I don't care, you need to…you need to leave."

"You're blocking my path."

"Well, that's easily taken care of, isn't it?"

Don collapsed onto the arm of his couch. He swept his arm to the side, and smiled. Because smiling was an important asset, and assets should be used whenever applicable.

"Feel free to _get out_ at any time."

Charlie pursed his lips, and took a deep breath. His arms crossed over his chest.

"I didn't mean for this to happen," he said.

Don stopped breathing. The lights flared in front of his eyes. The knot tightened, and the place where his gun holster _should_ have been felt suddenly heavy.

"You think I _did_?"

"No," Charlie said quietly. He blinked quickly, and Don wanted to apologize. Charlie wasn't too good with this shit.

"So…how'd it happen?" he asked instead.

Charlie shrugged. His eyes were narrowed against the light, a crease appeared in his forehead.

"Would you believe I don't know?" Charlie asked.

Don sucked air into his lungs, and what came back out wasn't really a laugh, but it was the best he could do on such short notice.

"No. You _always_ have the answers, don't you Charlie?"

He watched Charlie watch him, trying to ignore the way Charlie leaned a hip on the back of the easy chair. Don swallowed, and let the lights blind him again. He'd figured out all the angles to avoid that happening, but any advantage was good. No sight, no threat. Control, separate, more beer.

"That's what everybody says, anyway," he muttered. "Just. Ask. _Charlie_."

Don heard the shuffle of Charlie's feet against the carpet and turned his head away from the light bulb. Charlie had moved closer. His hands were in front of his body, long fingers twisting around each other. Don watched them curl and bend around each other, fingernails tracing the edges of Charlie's skin, running along the swirling fingerprint marks, and leaving white lines across the backs of his hands. He rubbed his own hand along the top of his thigh.

"I've been working on it," Charlie said. "An answer, I mean…we're not--are you gay?"

Don jerked to attention, and then looked down at his own hand. He coughed, and picked at a loose thread.

"Are you?"

"No! I--I'm equal opportunity," Charlie said. "As it were."

"…Works for me," Don said, nodding to his lap.

He risked a glance at Charlie, and wound up staring. Charlie's mouth curved, half-pleased, half-confused. He took another step forward. "Really? That's--that's…okay. Why--why didn't you say anything?"

Don snorted, and brought his beer to his mouth. If he concentrated on the bottle, it saved him from answering.

Charlie moved quickly. He reached out and wrapped his hand around the butt of the bottle. Don let go of the beer, and grabbed Charlie's wrist.

Charlie's eyes went wide. His mouth opened, and the point of his tongue swiped across his bottom lip. Don wanted to close his eyes. He felt a wrench in his stomach, the tear grew.

Charlie slowly pulled the beer away from Don's mouth. Don's arm stretched as Charlie's elbow bent. Charlie put the bottle to his lips. His Adam's apple bobbed as he drank.

Don's throat went dry. He stood, and in doing so, pushed on Charlie's wrist. The neck of the beer bottle slipped inside Charlie's mouth. His lips stretched over the brown glass.

Don squeezed Charlie's wrist, trapped as Charlie swallowed, throat muscles rippling. He raised his other hand, following the outline of the hard column behind Charlie's cheek. Soft skin, almost rough with stubble, prickled under his fingertips. Charlie's eyes slipped half-closed.

The lights suddenly seemed to shift and focus as Charlie lowered the beer bottle, letting the slick neck glide out of his mouth. The bottle fell to the carpet. Don's breath ripped out of his lungs in a harsh grunt. His cock began to harden. His hand shook, so he brought it away from Charlie's face, and tucked it in a belt loop.

This wasn't what he wanted. It _wasn't_. Charlie had to leave. If he left, than Don could figure out how to fix what was wrong with himself. It wasn't normal to want the things he wanted, and it wasn't _right_ , and--Charlie was speaking. Charlie _had been_ speaking and all Don could think about was tasting his brother's--Don nodded his head shakily at something Charlie had said, and tightened his hold on Charlie's wrist.

God, why couldn't he stop _touching_?

Charlie swallowed again, lips shiny with saliva. "If the trigger," he said quietly, "was Emily's kidnapping, then the--the _sex_ wouldn't have happened. You've worked on kidnapping cases before. And--and Kirkpatrick…"

Don nodded, and pushed a fist into the bruise on his stomach, but the throb from Terry's mark only added to the widening rip in his chest. He tightened his mouth. Charlie bent his head closer, a few curls knocked against Don's forehead.

"So, it was _me_ ," Charlie said. "Outside stimulus exacerbates internal factors. A plus B _doesn't_ equal D, if C gets in the way. If A's the kidnapping, B the shooting, and D the outcome, than _C_ …"

C stood for Charlie. Don's hand tightened on his brother's wrist. Charlie closed his eyes--almost like he was waiting for a hit--and Don wished for the luxury.

The crack widened, scraping his nerves raw. Don tried to pry his fingers off Charlie's wrist, but found he needed it for balance after all.

Terry had sucker punched him to break free. Charlie had bruises on his arms in the shape of Don's fingers. And Charlie thought _he_ was the problem.

"I _told_ you this isn't your fault," he growled.

Charlie shook his head. His breathed roughened.

"Look, I _ran the numbers_ on this one! I--"

"I am not a God damned _number_!"

Don shook Charlie's arm, forcing him to step back. Charlie hauled his wrist to the side, and Don moved forward. Charlie, all pale face and focussed eyes, pointed his other hand in Don's face.

"How _many_ times-- _everything_ is _numbers_!"

Don grabbed the back of Charlie's neck with his free hand and dragged him into a kiss. Charlie's mouth opened underneath his, hard lips and clever tongue, while long fingers coiled into Don's belt loops. He tangled his fingers in Charlie's hair, and yanked, breaking them apart. Charlie jerked at the touch, and the back of Don's knees smacked into the arm of the couch.

They wavered, but Don locked his knees and managed to keep them both upright. Charlie's hands clenched on Don's ass. He shuddered and it fed the increasing chasm in Don's chest. He bent Charlie's head to the side, and licked down his neck while Charlie arched and cried out. Charlie's mouth was red, bruised, and Don grasped for breath, finding enough to speak.

"This can't happen," he said, shutting his eyes as Charlie pushed against his hip. He groaned at the first tug on the tight topknot pressing against his windpipe. "Don't let me do this. God, don't let me do this, I…"

Charlie pressed steadily, loosening the knot of Don's tie until it hung beneath the second button. He pulled, and Don had to follow, dragged by his tie behind the easy chair and through the doorway to his bedroom. Charlie fell back on the bed, and Don fell on Charlie. His back quaked, muscles straining not to crush Charlie underneath him.

Don took a shuddering breath, dropping his head, as Charlie unbuttoned his collar and pressed his thumb into the hollow of Don's throat. Charlie kissed the crease in Don's forehead, and it hurt as much as it soothed.

"This is _wrong_ ," Don said.

He held Charlie close, and rocked against his groin. Hard fingers clutched at his back, blunt crescent fingernails scraping through his shirt. Don leaned into the pain.

"You think I don't _know_ that?" Charlie asked.

Don groaned. His hand pushed down Charlie's ribcage, the soft sin of his hipbone, and around into the front of Charlie's jeans. Charlie wrenched at the side of Don's shirt, sending buttons popping, and knocking his tie askew.

"This is going to _stop_ tonight," Don said. He thumbed open the button at Charlie's jeans, and pushed his hand into Charlie's underwear.

"I know, I know."

Charlie shuddered as Don clenched his hand around Charlie's cock and pulled. He planted messy kisses along Don's forehead and down to his lips, turning his head away to cry out when Don twisted his hand, and brought the other hand inside his pants to cup Charlie's balls. He rested his head on the Charlie's breastbone.

"This is the _end_."

"Okay, no problem," Charlie panted into Don's neck. "Kiss me good bye."

A hand gripped Don through his pants, knowing and just cruel enough to make him thrust for more. Charlie burrowed his head into the hollow of Don's throat, licking up the Adam's Apple and into Don's mouth. Don moaned, and stroked Charlie harder.

The fault in his stomach spread, widened, grew until it cracked his chest as Charlie worked his cock. Don scratched underneath Charlie's shirt and pulled it over his head, leaving it hanging from one arm. Charlie groaned and the rip, the tear, the horrible heat infesting Don's body broke wide. He pushed them further up the bed, holding Charlie in one hand, and writhing out of his own slacks with the other.

His tie was gone, lost somewhere in the writhing of their bodies. His shirt hung open, driven up his back by Charlie's hands. The apartment lights hollowed him out, blackened his insides, scorching his skin and driving his fingers, his tongue into Charlie's body. "Don't let me do this," he whispered to Charlie's chest, biting his way between nipples. "Don't let me do this. Tell me to stop. _Make_ me stop."

Charlie's fingers curled into his hair. Don bit down on the nipple underneath his mouth, and Charlie bucked upwards. Oh, someone forgive him, because Don could stay here for hours and not taste his fill, and--

"Stop."

Don froze, his hands clenched on Charlie's body, mouth still pursed. Charlie slipped from underneath him, leaving Don crouched, unmoving, on all fours. Don stared at the dip in his pillow left by Charlie's head.

It was over. He'd done it.

Charlie knelt on the bed. Don could almost see the rise and fall of Charlie's chest out of the corner of his eye, the bony point of his knee. Don's cock hung heavy between his legs. He turned his attention back to the dip in the pillow, and waited for Charlie to leave.

It was over. He'd done it.

The crevasse in his chest wouldn't seem to close. The edges crumbled, and wouldn't fit together again, too thin to cover something that wasn't there anymore. Charlie pressed up on Don's shoulder and turned him onto his back. Don lay his head on the pillow, and looked at the ceiling.

He felt cold for some reason. He hadn't felt cold in weeks.

He closed his eyes.

A hand landed carefully on Don's abdomen, long-fingered and strong. A finger swept over the yellowing bruise on his stomach. Don's muscles quivered.

"If I had said that before, would you have stopped?" Charlie asked.

Don nodded. Of course.

"Open your eyes."

Don shook his head to the ceiling. His body simmered, pulsed under Charlie's hand. There was still… "I think you should go."

He heard Charlie sigh. Felt a shiver wrack the bed, and then…

"…Please?"

Don opened his eyes, and watched as Charlie bent his head over the bruise. He kissed the heart of it, and glanced upwards. Their eyes met, and Don hated that _that_ made him feel better.

"I'm _sorry_ ," Don said.

"Everything is numbers," Charlie said, and bit down.

Don arched off the bed, slamming a hand to the mattress and another to Charlie's head. A hot tongue laved over the new bite, circling into the center before stabbing downwards, and then the teeth ground onto him again. He writhed upwards, into the teeth, the tongue, the chapped lips nudging over the edges of the bruise.

The teeth gentled, the tongue softened, and Don fought for his breath. Charlie murmured into his skin, low and scared, and Don could only pant and reach for the hard cock between Charlie's legs. He was sorry, he was so sorry for everything, while Charlie redefined the borders of his bruise: tongue, then teeth, then more tongue, then--

Charlie's eyes flicked to his face, dark and wild, as wrecked as Don felt. His cock throbbed, red and slick, and Charlie held Don's hips down to change the angle of his teeth in Don's stomach. Don moaned, light in his eyes. The throb of his blood beat in his cock, as Charlie reformed the bruise, deepening it until it sent shock waves through Don's body, and, finally, darkened his sight.

The mouth, glowing red and wet, left his stomach, and Don whined at the loss, thrusting into the air. Charlie wrapped his legs around him, his arms and mouth around him, and there was nothing holding him together but the places where his brother touched. A hand here, a foot there, lips on his skin, and a cock in his hand. Don burned, charred, and turned to ash while Charlie sucked the breath from his body and didn't give it back.

His brother moved above him, a hot, shadowed outline blocking the lights, and it hurt to be in the dark, almost as much as it had to be in all that light. Don shuddered as Charlie did, and pulled him closer, tucking his brother into his side. He closed his eyes, nose in the sweaty curls at Charlie's neck, and saw nothing at all.

***

Dr. Weber smiled at him from her chair in the conference room.

"You know, Don," she began, "we only have a limited amount of these sessions of ours. And, while I'm sure you'll be glad to see the back of me…" She paused, clearly waiting for his reaction.

Don smiled tightly, decided a laugh would be appropriate, and she continued.

Interlude: Day In, Day Out by missmollyetc 

Summary: Charlie's been thinking, and something just doesn't add up. A companion piece to "Interlude: The Daily Grind." 

Part 5 of Cardverse 

The 'why' was irrelevant now. Defining the 'why' would detract from the primary concern. What Charlie needed to figure out was the 'how.' Once the 'how' was established, then the 'why' could be determined based on the uncovered data.

The hallways were empty; classes hadn't started yet, and so the lights were on half power. Charlie's sneakers squeaked rapidly down the corridor. Amita wouldn't arrive until far later. No one ever came in this early except for him, and he'd trained the students to leave him alone if the door was closed. Charlie unlocked the math lab, shut the door behind him, and turned on the overhead fluorescents.

He paused, his back against the door. His clothes felt strange on his body, loose, but heavy. A knot formed in the pit of his stomach.

He'd had sex with his brother.

He'd touched-- _Don'd_ touched…there should have been some form of outside evidence. Something he couldn't erase by showering.

He rubbed his knuckles with his opposite thumb, turning his hand over and staring into his palm. He'd looked…searched the places he remembered Don biting, where the texture of his skin seemed different, but there wasn't a mark on him.

But, it had _felt_ …he had felt marked.

He dumped his pack on the counter, and fumbled for a dry erase pen. The big whiteboard on the far side of the room--the one nobody liked because it squeaked, but kept because it was frigging huge--was free. Crenshaw must've finished futzing with the bicuspid curve again.

Charlie could still feel Don against his body, pressing him into the wall. He swallowed. They hadn't talked, but events seemed to have progressed exponentially anyway.

There had to be an explanation for the situation at hand. Something Charlie wasn't seeing, or wasn't letting himself see--which was preposterous. He was a _mathematician_ , he couldn't afford not to identify all the variables in a given problem. Covering the bases wasn't simply a baseball reference.

He tossed the red pen cap over his shoulder and defined an empty set at the top left of the whiteboard, giving himself plenty of room. First of all, he had to isolate the principles involved. There was Don, and there was Charlie. Say…A and B, to be classical--a binomial expression. He wrote the letters in capitals inside brackets.

Now A and B acted upon each other--no, it was better to say that B acted on A--wait. Charlie frowned. If he was going to be forced, due to lack of physical evidence, to rely on purely internal memory functions than he had to be very careful _which_ factors he admitted into the equation. This wasn't a classical problem. He erased the letters with the edge of his fist. This was a modern equation, something a little less than rational.

So, he and Don were C and D. He put a swirl on C's tail, and scrawled D on the board, then stopped. In this problem, C was the instigating factor. C plus D equals E went up. Charlie paused, digging the pen tip into the board. But how should he quantify E? Was E the…the sex? Was E--all right, he had to get his mind in gear. E was the _outcome_ which _included_ the sex, but was not exclusive to it.

Don had left. He hadn't said anything. He'd _left_. Charlie had gotten out of the car, turned around, and watched Don peel out of the driveway, and down the road.

Charlie scrubbed E from the board, then the rest of the equation as well. Ink stained his skin.

In an binomial expression, the terms were joined by a plus or a minus. His first proposal was that they were joined by a plus, but was this correct?

Yes. He was quantifying the data to define a solution that came from D and C together, not apart. Right, that made sense. An equation that didn't equal D leaving because of something C did.

Charlie wrote D on the whiteboard again, in thick red ink.

***

"You know, you wouldn't think it would _kill_ your brother to pick up a phone once in awhile," Dad said.

"Uh huh."

Charlie traced a three-dimensional square on the varnished wood of the dinner table with his index finger. His pen moved across the pad in front of him. He caught it just before it rolled off the edge of the table, and set the nib to the page.

"Which is why I'm so glad I live with the _talkative_ son."

If D and C were mutually exclusive factors, then the equation didn't work. Because he was dealing with variables in nature, that meant that outside stimulus came into play in the two instances where D and C acted upon each other: the dinner table, and the stairwell. The first episode occurred _in_ the house…

"Did something happen, Charlie?" Dad asked. "Something you'd like to talk about? I don't like being out of the loop on these kinds of things."

…and the second event took place at work. The first while alone, and the last had involved interaction with others. But _had_ the prior interaction in the workplace spurred the secondary occurrence? D acting on C in response to D's previous interactions with other variables was a possible explanation for the rate of agitation, but the quality of…wait. It could be said that f--the workplace variable--was merely an element of the DC intersection, which would lead to the idea that the first event was a linear precursor to the last incident, and thus _could_ be counted as merely the same situation, yet an octave higher as on a freely vibrating open string. The chain of events could be considered as being in _harmony_ with each other, and thus, merely part of the original ground note.

"That doctor woman wants to speak with you too, you know. Maybe _she_ could get you to talk. I've often thought about sending you to therapy."

However, following that train of thought…what about the variables _prior_ to the introduction of C? The ground note theory was fine in and of itself, yet it failed to take into account that the first event had been precipitated by factors _outside_ of C's involvement, and directly in D's purview.

D and C weren't enough. The problem was more complex than that, an incredible array of external factors acted on all the variables involved both _before_ the first event, and then immediately following--even _continuing_ as the sequence lengthened. Chaos. It really was a fascinating subject.

"Sometimes I think of moving to Boca, and getting a condo. I'm reasonably sure I'd get a postcard, now and then."

Charlie glanced up, and shook his head. He shoveled a forkful of green beans into his mouth with his free hand. He chewed, pointing at his jaw. Dad sighed, raised an eyebrow, and went back to his food.

Charlie swallowed the vegetables, and licked butter from his lips. He wrote another string of numbers on the pad, scratched them out, and began again. O, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89... He set his pen down with a snap. He was calculating the Fibonacci sequence. Why did people constantly barge into his thought processes?

And Don hadn't called. Don hadn't come over. Don _hated_ him. Charlie'd done it again. He hadn't _meant_ to leave Mom--he'd just--he'd just--he'd had to find the _solution_. And Don got him back by leaving. If not in body, but then…he'd stopped listening. And _just_ when Charlie had thought Don was paying attention again, Charlie had gone and screwed it up.

He set down his fork, and pushed his plate away. The trigger was _there_. He felt like if he just reached his hand out fast enough, he could snatch the answers from the air in front of him, but all he could see was Dad, eating dinner.

That was it. He had to divorce himself from the equation, look at all the variables as the numeric data they were. The instigating factor had to be isolated.

"I have to get to work," he said.

He grabbed his coat and pack on his way through the living room. He heard Dad's footsteps behind him and rushed through the door.

***

The math lab had too many people. If Crenshaw peeked over Charlie's shoulder _one_ more time, there would be blood shed. Charlie banged his office door closed, and tossed his pack in the corner. There was a post it note on his desk, in the department secretary's handwriting. He unstuck it from that brownnosing Spellman's latest paper, and read:

_Your father called. He wants to know if he should send your clothes to the school, since you've decided to live here. Also, he's got a pamphlet for Boca, and he's not afraid to use it. A Dr. Weber's office wants to know if you're free for an interview this afternoon. Is your whole family insane?_

Charlie let the post it flutter to the linoleum, and cracked open a fresh box of dry erase pens. The whiteboard behind his desk was open, and the numbers were calling. Now, the reason C had become an internal factor was _because_ D instigated an event--a meeting. D instigated an event because Ethan's daughter had been kidnapped, so that meant he was continuing along the same line he'd been pursuing for _days_ …yet something in the loop refused to let him go. In that loop, that stretch of sequence, there lurked E, his outcome.

But to understand E, D had to be quantified, and D's participation continued to elude definition, both as a response and an instigation to C's involvement. C was a response to D, always had been. And there was _information_ to be had from D, but until the rest of the variables had been nailed down, then D would have to remain an unknown variable, which meant that the DC intersection lacked…

***

He let Amita drag him from his office only because she'd threatened to set fire to his files. He'd seen what happened to underclassmen who annoyed Amita in tutoring sessions. She'd do it.

"You know I don't mind taking your classes when you're working on a problem, but this one? Uh uh." She shook her head, waving to Li's gaping biology students as they passed.

He tuned her out, and continued along the path he'd created. He was _this_ close to the trigger. Now, if it _had_ been Emily's kidnapping--call it B, then D and C were accidental factors involved, since it was D that acted upon C to involve him in the case, and both D and C were drawn in through their own areas of expertise.

"I have homework to do," she continued. "Homework I had to assign _myself_ because my _advisor_ has gone over to the dark side."

Amita was talking to him about something. Homework? He didn't _have_ homework, he gave it.

"Come back to us, Charlie, okay? Larry's started coming to me for advice. It's creepy. I don't want to get used to it."

 _If_ Atwood hadn't heard from Ethan--call that A--then he wouldn't have contacted Ballard and Kirkpatrick, who wouldn't have kidnapped Emily, whose parents wouldn't have contacted the authorities. _They_ wouldn't have found Ballard's hideout, and D wouldn't have had to kill Kirkpatrick.

But, outside stimulus (even on such a pared down thread as the one he'd just proposed) could not account for internal factors. A plus B did not necessarily equal D, since D had little control over what cases passed his desk. However, D's known relationship with C could possibly make a difference in the assignment of certain cases. That created another outside factor stemming from internal stimulus, and yet he was always coming back to himse--coming back to _C_. And, if A was the kidnapping, B Atwood's greed, and D the hero, than C…

Amita pushed him across a threshold, and shut the metal door behind him. The lecture room was full of freshmen--the bane of all right thinking people--and Charlie nearly backed out of the door. He would have made it too, if that brownnosing Spellman hadn't seen him trying to disappear through the closed door.

"Professor Eppes!" she said, and the whole class turned to look. "I thought you were at a conference?"

Charlie shrugged, glared through the glass partition behind him at Amita's smirk, and made his way to the front of the classroom. The freshmen settled into their chairs. He picked up a piece of chalk and began to write. Behind him the cacophony of notebooks rustling, backpacks zipping shut, and those weird, flippy arm of the chair desks being shoved into place increased dramatically before dying down.

He inched his way across the board, shaping the equation. "Prove that in the equality N equals N half plus N fourth plus N eighth plus etc. plus N half to the second plus etc…" he finished writing the ellipse and began to write the caveat. "Where, of course, N is an arbitrary natural number, every fraction may be replaced by the nearest whole number."

He glanced behind him, shrugged at the blank faces and went back to writing. "Now, here's the first solution. It is readily seen that A equals the set of A plus one half. So we can put the equation we want to derive into…the following form…"

He wrote faster, the scribbling of pens behind egging him on to quicken his pace. Every second he wasted with them, was taking away from his real problem. Charlie ran out of room on the right and walked back to the left side of the board, taking the time to switch chalk pieces. Damn things always broke, and then the debris got all over his clothes. He sneezed, and some ass in the back of the room laughed.

"Now," Charlie said, "we're letting N equal An multiplied by twon plus An-1 multiplied by twon-1…plus An-1 times two plus A0--where An, An-1, A1, and A0 are either zero or one--be the expansion of N in powers of two,"--he glanced behind him--"as in the binary number system. Which means that the set of N half plus one half equals the set of An multiplied by twon-1 plus An-1 times twon-2 to plus…plus A1 plus the equation A0 plus one _divided_ by two equals…"

In the reflection of the framed Pascal's Triangle on the wall above him, he saw some heads nod, but most of the freshman were bent over their papers, writing as fast as Charlie could speak. He turned back to the board, and continued.

This was fairly simple, but the time it took was more important. The solutions covered more than a page, and, of course, the entire equation depended on the student having a full grasp of the facts involved. Which meant that after he gave them the first solution, then the real fun of divining the second answer could be--the second solution. More specifically, a second point of attack.

Charlie stopped writing. He let the chalk fall onto the ledge, and stepped away from the board.

He'd been sequencing Fibonacci at the dinner table last…he'd been at dinner…some time ago. Fibonacci occurred throughout nature and art, in a sequence where each number was calculated from the sum of the previous two. Zero, one, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one, thirty-four, fifty-five, eighty-nine, one hundred and forty-four, two hundred and thirty-three, three hundred and seventy-seven, six hundred and ten, nine hundred and eighty-seven, one thousand five hundred and ninety-seven, two thousand five hundred and eighty-four, four thousand one hundred and eighty-one, six thousand seven hundred and sixty-five…F[n] equaled F[n minus one] plus F[n minus two] with ratios found by F[n] divided by F[n minus one].

A sequence of events built on the sums of the last equations, with secondary solutions found to contain identifiable patterns of their own. Patterns that could then be quantified, and which led back to the original answer.

"Finish this," he said. "Find the second solution by Tuesday."

The door banged shut behind him.

***

Charlie frowned at his whiteboard, and tossed the empty pen to the trash. He picked up the next marker, and pulled off the cap. He blinked a few times, trying to stop the figures from swaying on the board.

D stood for Don. E, for the outcome. And C…he was always coming back to C. Which didn't make sense because the object wasn't to quantify C. _C_ was a known variable--there was no need to understand how C became involved. The entire point of the expression was E and D, but if E was dependant on C, and D remained _independent_ than the…that meant that…

"I thought I'd find you here," someone said behind him. "Not that you've been anywhere else, but I thought I'd put my faith in the laws of probability one more time. Mind if I take a seat?"

C was an internal factor, which meant that A and B were the outside stimulus that set D on his path. A naturally followed B, and since D was involved C was an inevitable component, but that meant that C was also an outside stimulus acted upon by D, and thus _becoming_ an internal factor. So the integral _internal_ factor was D, the zero point.

"Did you know Amita _actually_ came to me, and asked if there was mathematical methadone?"

But A occurred before the integral factor had come into play which meant Don wasn't _integral_ , but merely internal, so C _wasn't_ an inevitable component of the equation. Or, perhaps, D was merely the integral factor for a specific variable that then changed the equation, and could therefore be interfered with by said specific variable, and so he came back to C again.

C was…C was…Charlie very carefully set his pen down on the whiteboard ledge. C was the interfering factor that changed the equation. C wasn't C at all. He was X, the unknown variable.

He sat down on his desk. X by its very nature allowed for multiple hidden variables to screw with the theretofore mostly linear chain of events. So X, in a sense, was a destructive force, wreaking havoc on all the lesser algorithms.

Somebody should have posted warning signs around him. Yes--no. No. He'd made a mistake. He should go over his results again, find the flaw.

"I wondered if you'd reach a stopping place."

Charlie turned, and blinked. Larry was sitting in the chair opposite his desk.

"I haven't?" Charlie asked.

Larry fixed his eyes on the whiteboard, and pursed his lips. "Are you certain?"

He almost nodded. He couldn't be X, because he was C, and yet he _was_ X, and thus out of place in the equation. A horrible, disastrous mistake, and the equation wasn't coming out the way he needed if he was going to figure out _how_ he--how _C_ \--X--he needed more information. He needed to find out where he'd slipped up.

Charlie turned to board, and reached for the pen. He blinked slowly, shuddering in the sudden chill. It had gotten late, when had that happened?

"I understand that math is not my…area, _per se_ , but I feel reasonably confident in the subject given its application in my own field. May I ask what you've been computing?"

Charlie turned back around, stepping in front of the board. "No."

Larry blinked. Charlie crossed his arms over his chest, and stuck his chin out.

"That's…refreshingly private," Larry said, "considering the usually open field of math department relations. You're not pulling a Wiles', are you? You won't be…"--his hands rose, the fingers spasming outward--"springing the solution to P. vs. NP on us at a Newton Institute seminar?"

A chuckle escaped his mouth before Charlie realized what it was. His head drew back slightly. Well. He hadn't done that in a while.

Larry cocked his head. His hands, still in the air, aligned horizontally, and began to revolve around each other.

"Wiles' first proof of Fermat's Last Theorem was flawed, Larry," Charlie said, and coughed.

His throat felt rusty. Funny, he remembered talking to people.

"But the attempt was a thing of beauty," Larry said. "I took a photo for my scrap book."

"It was flawed."

Larry nodded. His hands steepled under his chin. "True, true. However, Wiles _had_ been working in total secrecy for seven years. You have to excuse the man for publishing early."

Charlie chuckled again. It felt easier once he'd started, as if a block was shifting loose in his throat.

Larry smiled. "And he _did_ come to the right answer eventually."

"I remember. A year later, after proving the Taniyama-Shimura Conjecture."

"Which no one believed could ever be done." Larry sighed. "A pity Taniyama didn't live to see it."

Charlie nodded, and looked down at his arms. His hands had begun to ache. He uncrossed his arms, and flexed his fingers. They were covered in dry erase dust. He needed to wash.

"So was I right? You've been working on a millennium problem?"

"No."

"Well, then I owe Crenshaw ten dollars."

Charlie looked up, and smiled. "Yeah, I guess you do."

Larry lifted his hands to the ceiling. "Win some, lose some."

Charlie felt his smile crumple, just a little. "I don't like to lose, Larry."

X, the destructive factor.

"No one does," Larry said. His hands swooped downwards. "Look at Wiles. All that media attention, and then…a fatal flaw, but what did he do?"

"He persevered," Charlie said.

"Exactly. With a little help, of course. A fresh perspective, as it were."

A fresh perspective. New information that could realign the data along more feasible lines. Charlie felt the equation looming behind him, slicing into his skin.

"Can you drive me somewhere?" he asked. "I need a lift."

"Of course," Larry said. "But I think whatever you're seeking might be easier to find if you showered first."

***

The elevator doors split open.

He rubbed the back of his neck.

Forty, fifty, meters of hallway stretched out before him, a window on the farthest wall.

Don lived at 5E, the penultimate door, on the right. He'd only been to the apartment once before, and that had been…that'd been a while ago. Charlie tugged on the hem of his borrowed t-shirt, and took a deep breath. Drops of water slid from his half-dried hair to his collar.

_Don, I'd like to talk to you._

No. It needed to be stronger. He'd had a lot of time to go over his figures in the shower, and then on the ride over. Larry had left him alone, not even asking who lived at the apartment building when they'd pulled up.

The elevator doors shuddered, and began to close. He stuck his hand out, and the left panel bounced off his knuckles. The hallway remained empty.

_Don, we need to talk._

He stepped out onto the floor.

_Don, we have to talk. Don, I've been thinking…remember that time we had sex? What was that all about?_

The elevator closed behind him.

_Don, make this better._

Well, he was just a big twelve year old girl, wasn't he. Time to focus. He had an equation. This equation had a flaw. To understand the outcome, he had to isolate and eliminate the flaw. To accomplish this, he needed further information.

He began to walk down the hall. 5A, 5B, 5C…what if Don wouldn't open the door? This felt different. This felt worse. When he'd gone to Don's work…there had been people there. He'd had a _plan_ …of course, that plan had gone out the window--and into the stairwell, pretty quickly.

_Don, I'm going insane, and I need you to tell me what D stands for._

He hadn't come to the house. He hadn't requested Charlie for work. He hadn't--had he talked to Dad? Charlie couldn't remember.

5D, 5E.

Charlie stopped in front of Don's apartment, and swallowed. He stiffened his jaw. He was a mathematician. He was here for answers, a fresh perspective.

_Don, the equation we're living seems to have developed a distressing sub-pattern in which the variables that should build from one another instead mutate into different branches of the underlying expression. Now, I've tried quantifying it on my own, but the answer came up…it came out in a very…Look, I need you to start talking, all right?_

Time to focus. This wasn't right. Any of it. Charlie knocked on the door, rapping his knuckles underneath the metal 'E.'

He heard _something_ move inside the apartment--Don stumbling, or a door closing--and he thumped harder, steady, solid hits to the wood. The rhythm helped him foc--glass shattered inside the apartment. Charlie's shoulder muscles locked. His fist halted on the door.

"Don?" he called out. "I know you're in there!"

Come out with your hands up. Great way to the start the conversation. What the hell was he going to say now?

Charlie swallowed, and fought down the urge to bolt. "Dad sent me…" he began. Oh, even better. Bring Dad into this.

"He thinks," Charlie let a nervous chuckle slip free, "thinks we've got something to talk about."

He stared at the pale wood, but the door didn't open. He couldn't hear a sound coming through. A knot formed in Charlie's stomach. Heat bloomed at the base of his skull. He'd come to Don. To talk. He'd come to--to understand what the hell was going on, and he couldn't _do_ that if he didn't have all the facts. Charlie would _not_ …this was not something he could figure out by himself anymore. There were too many variables contained in the equation. Even Wiles had had help.

Charlie's jaw tightened. Inside, Don started to cough, and Charlie banged on the door.

"See! I _heard_ that! You _are_ in there!" he yelled.

"What are you _doing_ , young man?"

He turned around. The door to 5F was open. An old woman stood between the edge of the door and the threshold. She sniffed at him, clutching her bathrobe tightly against her chest. Her grey curls were amazingly symmetrical, even pressed a little flat to her head. Charlie, hand already raised, waved.

"Sorry, Ma'am," he whispered. "I'll--I'll be gone before you know it."

She sniffed again, and narrowed her eyes. "What are you doing at Agent Eppes' door at this time of night?" she asked.

He shrugged, raising his hands to the ceiling. "Look, I've been doing some…I've been going over some figures, and…"

He kicked the door behind him, willing Don to open up. What did he have to do? Crawl? And now the neighbor lady was backing up into her apartment with a very alarmed look on her face.

"Do you work for the FBI?" She stuck her head out to look up and down the hall.

Charlie spun around. Just when he was close to understanding how they'd…even his actions now-- _their_ actions were changing the equation. C acting on D while D was in absentia. D's very _absence_ became a factor, but the flaw persisted. C was still the primary proactive element, with D as a secondary…God, he was tired. He couldn't really remember his sleeping patterns lately.

"I…I just…c'mon, at least let me tell Dad I saw you," he said to the door.

"Is that some kind of code?" the woman asked behind him. "I've heard about boys like you."

She shut her door with a bang. He winced, and kicked Don's door again. Maybe Don would open up just to tell Charlie to keep the noise down. Or, hey, guilt might work.

"He was upset when you didn't call him back about Dr. Weber. He thinks she wants to talk to him. …Maybe me, as well. He's been griping about it all day."

Actually, he couldn't really remember his last conversation with Dad. Something about Florida? Charlie shook his head. He glanced behind him to see the crazy woman had come back. She was giving him the evil eye.

"Don?" Charlie raised his voice again. "Open up, okay? Your neighbors are staring at me."

"You're still here," she said.

"Yes, ma'am! I'm still here." He lifted his hand to knock again, and--

"Shouldn't you be off buying dope, or something?"

Dope? He frowned, pausing. What had brought that up? He looked behind him.

"Well, you should just be moving on," she said, shooing him off with her hand. "Agent Eppes is a very busy man with a lot on his mind."

And he didn't? He'd been working on this problem day and night--and teaching class! Charlie lifted his chin, and glared. The woman raised her arm, a cordless phone in her bony hand.

Charlie kicked the door again. "Don, open the door. I think she's calling the police."

Nothing. Maybe--maybe that glass crashing had been serious. Charlie pressed his hand to the door, ignoring the sound of dialing behind him. That was too many numbers for 911, anyway.

"Are--are you there? Are you all right?" he asked.

"Oh course he's not," the crazy woman said. "A lunatic is attacking his front door."

Something thumped on the door from _inside_. Don. Don was at the door. Charlie straightened, tuning the woman's mutterings out. He licked his lips and took a deep breath. His hand pushed against the wood.

If Don opened the door, they could talk. D could be quantified with the information Don contained, and then E would start to make more sense than simply…if Don had the information Charlie hoped he did than C wouldn't necessarily be X.

 _Why_ wouldn't he say anything? He was there. He was right there…Charlie remembered the stairwell, or more correctly, _why_ Don had pushed him into the stairwell.

"Sorry, I know you hate that…but…" That woman was dialing again, clucking her tongue with every beep. "Damn it, open the door!"

"Language!"

Charlie clenched his hands. Don was behind the door, close enough that Charlie could imagine his outline in the wood. "I never… This isn't…I'm not good at this," he said.

He hit the door again. Maybe Dad was right to be so binary, so straightforward. You were either a one, or a zero, all the variables accounted for. Formulating the answers in number theory required input based on reliable facts. If the facts weren't _there_ , or biased, then the equation suffered.

He leaned his head against the door, and tried to stare through the barrier.

"You're alive," he said. "I'm so happy you're alive. And, I just…I didn't _mean_ to!"

He'd tried back at the office. He'd wanted to _understand_ , but D defied qualification, and C became X, and E was slipping from his fingers.

"I didn't come here with…expectations."

But maybe he had. What D stood for, what it meant when C acted on D, and D damn well _let_ him. He didn't know anymore, and that was a highly distressing idea. That his own data could be so corrupted by emotion that it became useless...

"I just…" Charlie knocked on the door again, three times and then twice. "You know, what?"

What was he supposed to gain from a lack of understanding? What information was D _witholding_ that would make this equation work? His chest tightened. Blood pounded at his temples.

"You want me gone, then…you tell me to my face. You open this door, and you throw me out of your building yourself and--"

"Who let you in here? Was it that lout by the door?"

Charlie spun around, jaw clenched. "Yes, ma'am! The doorman _did_ let me in!"

Actually, the doorman was asleep, but Charlie hadn't been in the mood for conversation anyway.

The woman pursed her lips. Her eyebrows rose. "Did you slip him a twenty?" she hissed.

Charlie dragged a hand through his hair, and then shook his finger at her.

" _No_ ," he said. "I did _not_ give him twenty dollars. I--oh."

He heard the door open. Charlie's head whipped around. He blinked. He swallowed, and his hand dropped to his side.

Don stood in the doorway, one hand on the doorknob. He was fully dressed, from the soles of his shoes to the perfectly knotted tie at his throat. He stared at Charlie, and heat shot through Charlie's body.

"Everything's fine, Mrs. Green," Don said. "Go back inside."

For the life of him, Charlie couldn't remember a single number. It was horrifying, empty, _lonely_ , and the only other person to latch on to was his brother. He'd forgotten this, the physical _jolt_ of Don's presence. How had he forgotten that?

He heard the bang of a door closing, and then Don was raising a beer bottle to his mouth. Charlie watched the arc of the bottle, Don's lips wrapping around the opening, the flex of Don's neck as he swallowed. Charlie found himself copying the motion, his throat suddenly dry.

Don lowered the beer bottle, and glared at Charlie. Don was… Don was standing in the doorway, blocking Charlie's view into the apartment with his body. He held the door half closed. He didn't _want_ Charlie here.

Charlie crossed his arms over his chest, and hunched his shoulders. He kicked the floor with his toe. He could do this. There was an equation to be solved. This was what he _did_.

"Hey," Charlie said.

Don took a deep breath, and his lips thinned. He frowned, and Charlie flinched.

"You gonna let me in?" Charlie asked shakily. "I've been running some sequences--charts, actually, and I think I've got--"

"You've seen me," Don broke in.

Charlie's head snapped up. His mouth parted, breath escaping in a rush. A sharp pain snapped through his gut.

Don glared again. He coughed, and looked past him, as if Charlie had turned to air. Charlie closed his mouth. His chin lifted.

"Go home," Don said. He sounded like he was speaking to Charlie from far away. D, removing himself from the equation.

He started to close the door, and it smacked straight into Charlie's foot. Charlie stepped closer, thrusting his body into Don's space.

"We're having this conversation," he said. "It's either gonna be in the hallway, or in your apartment."

C acted on D, whether to D's detriment, or as a positive function, but D did _not_ punk out and completely void E. That wasn't _possible_.

Don closed his eyes, and banged his head against the edge of the door.

" _Stop_ that," Charlie said. He stepped closer, and smelled beer on Don's clothes. He breathed deeply.

E had _occurred_ , and what had occurred once, could not be undone. Numbers existed outside of man's ability to discount them. Pythagoras had ignored that fact, and made his greatest, most disgraceful mistake.

Don looked at him from narrowed eyes. Charlie resisted the urge to touch the reddened curve at his neck, where Don's collar must have aggravated the skin.

"It's my apartment," Don said. "If you don't like it, then leave."

Just because you didn't like the answer…Just because the answer wasn't something you expected…Charlie frowned.

C was X. D was Don. And E was somewhere in that apartment. Where they could talk.

Don licked his lips, and Charlie's train of thought briefly derailed. He took a breath. He kept his eyes on Don's face, reaching out to brush his fingers across the back of Don's hand. Don's knuckles were rough, but the thin skin behind them felt soft. Charlie shivered at the contact. He wanted to have that hand on his hip again, feel his brother thrusting against him again.

"Why the hell does everybody want to talk at me these days?" Don asked. His voice curled inside Charlie's head, and took root.

Charlie blinked. Don was looking at his mouth. His upper lip curled, and Don's breath picked up.

"Because you never say _anything_ when you've got a problem!" Charlie said.

"There's nothing to say."

Don leaned closer, almost near enough to kiss. Charlie froze. If he kissed--if they moved together, would E make sense? Would D? A nervous chuckle escaped, and Don flinched.

Damn. Damn it. Time to focus. Charlie dragged a hand through his hair. He squared his jaw, and looked Don in the eye. Don backed up like Charlie had the plague, and Charlie saw his chance.

Before Don could shut the door again, Charlie shot across the threshold, and into the apartment. He kicked the door shut behind him, and leaned on it. He stared at his brother, off balance. He didn't have the answers, or he had part of the answer, and Don had the other part, and so this…whatever it was had to be resolved.

"You think I _want_ to talk about this?" he asked. "Damn it, Don! I'm _tired_ I--" he squinted to the side. Light drenched the apartment. "You sure you've got enough light in here? You could signal MIR with this array."

He peered into the living room. It looked like Don had turned on every lamp and fixture in the apartment--maybe even added some.

"I told you to go home," Don said.

Charlie coughed, turning back to Don, and tugging on the hem of his t-shirt. It was hot in Don's apartment. All the extra light, plus the typical climate of California…and Don was wearing long sleeves _plus_ a tie…"Yeah, I know, hey, you pay electricity on a monthly basis, so with six plus four--no. I'm concentrating here."

Charlie walked forward. He grabbed Don's elbow, cupping the bony joint in his palm. The contact felt good. He tugged Don into the living room, and gaped at the bare-bulbed lamps turned on to their highest setting, the mess on the coffee table.

Don jerked his elbow out of Charlie's hand. He stepped back to the edge of his couch. Charlie let his hand fall to his side. What the hell had Don been doing in here? A tremor went through Charlie's body. Maybe…maybe Don had less of an answer than he'd hoped.

"I need more information," Charlie said. His voice sounded weak in his ears.

"You can borrow my encyclopedia," Don said.

Charlie glared at him, and Don cackled into his beer bottle. A drop of liquid beaded at the edge of his mouth, and fell down his chin. Charlie licked his lips.

In all the light, Charlie could see the muscles move beneath Don's shirt. The lines around his mouth, the pallor of his skin. Don rested the bottle on his thigh, and pressed his lips together. He looked tired, as worn out as Charlie felt.

He wasn't going to speak. He was going to sit there, and drink beer unless Charlie thought of something to say.

"That's funny. That's funny, and you're joking…that's a good thing…" Charlie stepped forward, and Don raised his free hand.

"Just stay over there," Don said. Don's eyebrows drew downwards. He shifted his grip on his beer bottle like he was throttling it.

Charlie stopped moving. "Don, I want--"

"I don't care," he said. "I don't care, you need to…you need to leave."

"You're blocking my path," Charlie said.

"Well, that's easily taken care of, isn't it?"

Don collapsed onto the arm of his couch. His thighs spread to keep his balance, and his slacks tightened at the crotch. He swept his arm to the side, and smiled.

"Feel free to _get out_ at any time."

Charlie pursed his lips, and took a deep breath. Well, Don was speaking now. And he blamed Charlie for this. X, the disruptive variable. Charlie crossed his arms over his chest.

"I didn't mean for this to happen," he said.

Don grimaced. His eyes flashed. "You think I _did_?" he barked.

"No," Charlie said. He blinked quickly. Damn it.

The variables involved had placed pressure on D, then C, who'd reacted upon D, thus adding even greater stress on a single variable. The outcome of…saying cubing D had then rebounded on C and--

"So…how'd it happen?" Don asked.

Charlie's mouth opened and closed. He shrugged. The lights were giving him a headache. He didn't have the answer. Except he had part of it--and once Don heard the part Charlie had figured out, Charlie would be out on his ass. And D would remain unclassified, except in the roughest of terms.

"Would you believe I don't know?" Charlie asked. At least, not to his satisfaction.

Don laughed, and Charlie fought the urge to back up a step.

"No," Don said. "You _always_ have the answers, don't you Charlie?"

He shifted on the arm of the couch again, and Charlie caught himself on the back of Don's easy chair. He had two whiteboards full of their problem, at least four notebooks in his office, and twice that amount of information in his head, and right then the only thing he wanted to calculate was the arch of Don's neck as it twisted in front of him.

"That's what everybody says, anyway," Don muttered. "Just. Ask. _Charlie_."

Charlie moved closer. His rubbed his fingers into his palm, trying to erase the faint patina of ink on his skin. There was so much he didn't know, so many elements of D he couldn't calculate because D remained unknown, familiar and yet totally dissimilar from what he thought he remembered.

"I've been working on it," Charlie said. "An answer, I mean…we're not--are you gay?"

Don gaped at him, and Charlie flushed. Don looked down. He coughed, and picked at a loose thread.

"Are you?" he asked.

"No! I--I'm equal opportunity," Charlie said. "As it were."

"…Works for me," Don said, nodding to his lap.

Charlie felt a certain tension leave him, and another build. This was something. An answer. He…it was an intersection, a place where two elements of previously exclusive factors came together. He felt his mouth curl upwards, and took a step forward.

"Really? That's--that's…okay. Why--why didn't you say anything?"

Don snorted, and brought his beer to his mouth. Damn it, not again. If he was drinking, then he couldn't answer anything. Charlie moved to stand at Don's knee. He reached out and wrapped his hand around the butt of the bottle. Don let go of the beer, and grabbed Charlie's wrist. His fingers dug into Charlie's skin.

Charlie's eyes widened. His mouth opened, and he licked his bottom lip. Don was staring at him again.

He'd done that a lot, from the moment the door had opened. And then he'd tear his gaze away and come right back again. Maybe he'd always _been_ staring and Charlie was only now starting to understand it. Maybe C was X, but X wasn't all he'd been cracked up to be.

He slowly pulled the beer away from Don's mouth. The brown glass was heavy and damp against his palm, warm from Don's fingers. Don kept his eyes on Charlie the entire time, as Charlie put the bottle to his lips. The mouth of the bottle clicked slightly against his teeth as he swallowed the beer.

It tasted a little stale, a bit warm, and the mouth of the bottle was slick with Don's taste. Charlie swallowed again, and Don stood up. His hand spasmed around Charlie's wrist, pushing forward, and Charlie was forced to let the bottle into his mouth, or break his teeth.

Don was taller, stronger, than him. Charlie _knew_ that of course, but now the fact was forced on him as his brother squeezed his wrist. Don's mouth opened, breath hissing out. Charlie swallowed around the bottle, flattening his tongue along the smooth weight of it in his mouth.

Close. They were as close as they'd been in the stairwell, and was D acting on C in response, or had C been acted upon? Charlie couldn't remember. Don's hand rose. His fingertips stroked over Charlie's cheek, rubbing in small circles. Charlie's eyes slipped half-closed. His cock hardened as the hand on his wrist loosened enough for him to lower the beer bottle.

Charlie swallowed, and let the bottle fall to the floor. Don grunted. His lips drew back from his teeth, and his hand left Charlie's face. He felt a cold spot where Don's fingers had been, and flexed his wrist just to feel Don's hand tighten.

Don was silent, looking at him, then through him, and then at him again. Charlie lifted his chin, and leaned forward into Don's space, trying to catch his eye. Don was usually so _there_ , so physically present, that when he left Charlie felt it like an ache in his bones.

Now. It had to be now, when they were both aware of the variables acting on each other, and not at their beck and call.

"This sequence I've been running," he began, "I've been trying to figure out how this could happen to us. How it could occur without--without any kind of foundation, and…I think it goes farther than just…momentary insanity. For an event to occur there _must_ be a foundation, even a slight one, and so…"

Don waited. His forehead wrinkled, something panicked lurked in his eyes. Charlie swallowed again, and licked his lips. He had to say it. Don could forgive him, couldn't he? They were already here, at the intersection, the elemental common point.

"If the trigger," he said quietly, "was Emily's kidnapping, then the--the _sex_ wouldn't have happened. You've worked on kidnapping cases before. And--and Kirkpatrick…"

If Kirkpatrick wasn't the first dead man--and who had Don gone to then? But Don hadn't exactly gone to Charlie. C who was X, acting on D creating part of E, and D, who maybe was 'E' after all.

Don nodded. His fist jabbed into his own stomach, and Charlie forced himself to finish what he'd begun. He bent his head, watching Don's hand work itself into his own stomach. It was a familiar motion, but Charlie couldn't place it.

"So, it was _me_ ," Charlie said. "Outside stimulus exacerbates internal factors. A plus B _doesn't_ equal D, if C gets in the way. If A's the kidnapping, B the shooting, and D the outcome, than _C_ …"

His voice broke. He couldn't finish, and shut his eyes when Don yanked on his wrist. He felt bones shift. They swayed for a moment, and then stilled. Charlie felt a window open in the back of his skull. Zero, one, one, two, three, five, eight. A number built on the backs of the previous two which were themselves answers in their own right.

"I _told_ you this isn't your fault," Don growled.

Charlie shook his head. His breath tore out of his throat, and he inhaled deeply. He looked up into Don's face, and fought down the laughter. When had Don said that? He couldn't remember a single time. And what good was it to protest? This was _Charlie's_ field, and while his emotions may have created a flaw, it wasn't that C had been an instigating party as he'd thought. It was that Don _had not_ been so much a factor as he'd been the goal _and_ a factor, and that was just fucked beyond belief.

"Look, I _ran the numbers_ on this one! I--"

"I am not a God damned _number_!"

Of course he was! They both were! Data to be understood and calculated, and if Don hadn't been _stubborn_ they'd have been a finished equation days--weeks--however long ago it had been! Felt almost like yesterday with Don standing so close, and as just out of understanding as ever. Don shook Charlie's arm, forcing him to step back. Charlie hauled his wrist to the side, and Don moved forward. Charlie stabbed his other hand in Don's face.

"How _many_ times-- _everything_ is _numbers_!" he shouted.

Don grabbed the back of Charlie's neck with his free hand and dragged him into a kiss. His mouth was hard, smashing his teeth against Charlie's lips until Charlie opened, and let Don inside.

He tasted just as good as Charlie had remembered, and the shock of that was like acid in his veins. That this could taste--could feel--as good as it had before altered the equation. C--X as an _element_ of D, whose intersection was both C and E, and held D as the flashpoint. Charlie sucked on Don's tongue and pressed forward for more. He stuck his fingers in Don's belt loops for balance, to feel the taut muscles of Don's body against his own.

Don's hand kneaded the back of Charlie's head, scratching into the scalp, and then he tangled his fingers in Charlie's hair, and yanked, breaking them apart. Charlie's mouth gaped, dragging in air. His hips thrust forward, and they lost their balance.

They wavered, but Don managed to keep them both upright. Charlie found himself with his hands on Don's ass, and flexed his fingers into the muscles. He shuddered at the sensation. He let Don push his head to the side, and gave up to the feel of his brother's tongue as it mapped his neck. He cried out as Don's cock rubbed against his, and closed his eyes, trying to block out the harsh light.

"This can't happen," Don said.

Charlie looked down, pushing against Don's hip, as Don shut him out. D in absentia, which wasn't possible because Charlie felt him everywhere, hard against him and still holding his head. Charlie's fingers stretched up Don's stomach and chest, and closed over the tight knot at his brother's throat. He could see rough skin underneath Don's collar, red and painful looking. Charlie tugged at the knot, and Don moaned. Don's breath evened out, and then sped up again.

"Don't let me do this," Don said. "God, don't let me do this, I…"

But he groaned again as Charlie pressed down on the knot, loosening the tie until it hung beneath the second button of Don's shirt. His throat muscles rippled, and his shoulders slumped, but then tightened again, spine snapping vertical. Don stood like it hurt to even breathe.

The element X in play, mutating in meaning as variables rained around them. There was too much light, too much everything, and not enough room to catch his breath. Charlie's head pounded, his fingers shook on the knot. He pulled on Don's tie, and his brother followed him. Charlie couldn't look away from Don's face, his red, wet mouth. His hands slipped from Charlie's body.

Charlie risked looking behind him, and saw a bed through an entryway. He veered towards it, and stumbled on something coming through the door. He fell back on the mattress, and Don landed on top of him.

Don's body blocked the light above. He crouched over Charlie, back arching up as he dropped his head. Charlie inhaled the scent of Don's cropped hair, and unbuttoned Don's collar. He pressed his thumb into the hollow at Don's throat, where the roughest patch of skin lurked, and twisted to kiss Don's forehead. He closed his eyes, feeling Don's shaking pass into his own body.

"This is _wrong_ ," Don said.

He thrust downward, and Charlie groaned. He wrapped his arms around Don's back to keep him close and scratched at the cotton shirt. Skin and quaking muscles under his hands, and the rhythm of Don's breath matched the grind of his cock into Charlie's hip. E. He had been looking for E the outcome--or was it D? He couldn't--he couldn't _think_ anymore, and he didn't know why he'd want to because the weight of Don, the zero point, choked him. He pushed up and snatched air into his lungs.

"You think I don't _know_ that?" Charlie asked.

It would _kill_ Dad. Charlie was surprised it hadn't killed _him_.

Don groaned. His hand pushed down Charlie's ribcage, and around into the front of Charlie's jeans. His knuckles circled over Charlie's stomach, tensing, rather than relaxing, and Charlie wrenched at the side of Don's shirt, sending buttons popping. He paused, flattening his palm against the skin. Don's chest--he'd never seen it from this angle, never wanted so much to _touch_ as he did now. Charlie whimpered, and brought his hand up to rub the red marks on Don's neck.

"This is going to _stop_ tonight," Don said.

He thumbed open the button at Charlie's jeans, and pushed his hand into Charlie's underwear. Charlie moved into the circle of Don's hand, and gasped.

"I know, I know," he said, twisting his head to the side. All they had to do was complete the equation, solve the problem, and then…and then…

Charlie shuddered as Don stroked his cock, timing his own thrusts against Charlie's hip to the motion of his hand. Charlie tugged Don's head down, kissing the lines in his forehead and down to suck at Don's lips, biting because Don seemed to like that. Don clenched his fist at the head of Charlie's cock, a hint of nails on the underside, and Charlie writhed upwards with a moan. Don rested his head on the Charlie's breastbone, and Charlie tucked his face as best he could in Don's neck.

He closed his eyes against the light. He hated it. Don looked old beneath it, washed out and ragged. He looked like the light hurt him, or maybe that was just Charlie.

"This is the _end_ ," Don whispered, and his other hand caressed Charlie's balls.

"Okay, no problem," Charlie panted into Don's ear. "Kiss me good bye."

He reached downward, and burrowed his hand between his hip and Don's cock, gripping his brother through his slacks. Don's head tilted back to the ceiling, mouth stretching to a red circle. Charlie laved the mark at Don's throat , licking up the Adam's Apple and into Don's mouth. Don moaned, and stroked Charlie harder.

The hand on his balls left, and Charlie whined at the loss, then arched up as Don scraped his fingernails underneath Charlie's shirt and pulled it over his head, leaving it hanging from one arm. Charlie groaned. Skin, finally more skin, and it felt as good as he knew it shouldn't, but the equation had to reach its zenith, the necessary factors coming into play. Don crawled above him, forcing their bodies up the bed, and gripping Charlie in one hand. Charlie felt Don's pants opening, then the feel of them slithering down Don's legs.

He clutched Don's tie and tore it from him, the knot finally working free. He mapped the skin above him, learning the curves and peaks, the hard columns of bone beneath the skin. Don came back to him, naked but for his shirt and Charlie was suddenly, fiercely happy. He pushed up into Don's fingers, his tongue, his _presence_ , dimly aware that Don was biting words into his skin, sinking them into his body along with his teeth. He swallowed and tried to focus, to make the words out.

"Don't let me do this," he was whispering to Charlie's chest, biting his way between nipples. "Don't let me do this. Tell me to stop. _Make_ me stop."

Then why were they _here_? Because Don was here, alive, and breathing and moving against him, and Charlie knew it hurt, because he hurt too, and… _make me stop_.

Charlie's fingers curled into Don's hair. Don bit down on the nipple underneath his mouth, and Charlie bucked upwards. Obeying the demand in Don's touches, and if he could do that, couldn't he listen to what Don was telling him? He'd come here for that, for the information, for--

"Stop."

He almost didn't recognize his own voice. Don froze, and something cracked in Charlie's chest. Don's hands clenched on Charlie's body, and suddenly they were the only points of heat left. Charlie felt cold, exposed in the blinding lights. He pulled away from Don, and knelt by his brother on the bed.

Don was on all fours. He didn't even turn his head to look at Charlie.

Charlie shifted on his knees. He didn't know what to do. _Make me stop._ He had. Now what? Leave? He looked towards the bedroom door, the lights beyond the threshold.

Don wanted him to stop, or wanted him to make _Don_ stop. So that meant…he… Charlie let the room fade away, focusing on the round of Don's shoulder. If--maybe C wasn't X, and D wasn't X either. Not a binomial expression, but C plus D acting in reaction to a _third_ variable as an outside--maybe internal, could it be _integral_?--stimulus.

Charlie reached out and palmed Don's shoulder. The swell of muscle quivered under his fingers. If this was the outcome, E, then X as the outside--possibly internal--disruptive factor had still to be quantified. It was why Don was here, why Charlie was here, why they were both hard and shaking and Don was lying on his back, refusing to look at Charlie. Something he'd done, and Don'd done, and then…

Don closed his eyes. Charlie flinched.

The light showed every line of Don's body. The strong chest, the hair and nipples, every mark exposed, stiff and tense. Scratches from Charlie's nails, a faint sheen of sweat leading down Don's stomach to the yellowing bruise--that he hadn't put there. It was over the spot Don had aggravated in the living room.

He remembered now. That was Terry's bruise. Charlie swallowed. He lay his hand on Don's abdomen. His index finger swiped across the bump, and Don's stomach tightened.

"If I had said that before, would you have stopped?" Charlie asked.

Don nodded. Charlie waited, but his brother still wouldn't look at him. He wanted to lean down, to kiss him until Don was forced to grab hold again, but it wouldn't count if Don wasn't even seeing _him_.

"Open your eyes," he said.

Don shook his head to the ceiling. A hot, tight spiral curled up Charlie's spine.

"I think you should go," Don said.

Charlie's breath left him. He shivered, cold and hot at the same time, and the lights beat down on his head. How did Don _live_ with it all?

"…Please?" Charlie asked.

Don opened his eyes, and Charlie bent under his gaze. His forehead pressed against his fingers on Don's stomach. Terry's bruise loomed in his sight. It was old, fading--almost tan at the edges. He raised his head, and kissed the heart of it, feeling heat against his lips.

Charlie looked up, and met Don's eyes. Don's mouth curled up for a brief, heart-stopping moment. The lines on his face relaxed, and reformed.

"I'm _sorry_ ," Don said.

At the intersection of C and E, where D was an element and a stimulus of both, the inclusion of X became a question of primary concern.

"Everything is numbers," Charlie said, and bit down at the center of Terry's bruise.

Don arched into his mouth. His hand slammed onto the back of Charlie's head, and held him in place--not that Charlie could have let go. The skin between his teeth was soft, but tense and hot enough that Charlie could warm his own body direct from the source. Salt burned his tongue and he pushed closer to take more, to tear into Don until D was just as much an element of C as he was of every thing else, physical and present, _alive_.

Charlie held Don against the bed as he writhed, gentling his mouth to let his brother breath, to hear him moving above him and under him at the same time. He murmured Don's name against the tight skin, whispered the equation he'd fought with while Don lived it, and apologized in the same breath.

He was hurting Don. He was hurting himself, and Don's hand on Charlie cock was the best thing--the only thing--he could feel except for the skin under his teeth. If he could hold on, into Don's stomach, into Don's fist, then the lights couldn't reach them, and Don couldn't stop and neither could Charlie and he looked up into his brother's face to find his way.

Don moaned, and Charlie bit harder, clenching his jaw as Don fisted his cock. Fire charred his bones as he jerked in Don's hand, burrowing into the new formed bruise. Charlie tasted copper, bright as burning pennies, and lifted his mouth.

Don thrust into the air, and groped for him, keening, and Charlie fell onto Don's body, holding on and delving down as the numbers piled on top of them. Zero, one, one, two, three, five, lips and tongue, and Don's cock jerking in his hand as eight, thirteen, twenty-one, thirty-four, oh God, the feel of Don surrounding him and tearing at him, holding him against the bed and against himself, fifty-five, eighty-nine, one hundred and forty-four, two hundred--they rolled over and Charlie was on top--and thirty-three, arching and moaning and twisting in each other's grip until nothing existed but three hundred and seventy-seven, six hundred and ten, nine hundred and eighty-seven, and he sealed his mouth to Don's, suckling and fucking his tongue past Don's teeth, one thousand five hundred and ninety-seven, and Don shouted and bucked and came over Charlie's fist and two thousand five hundred and eighty-four, four thousand one hundred and eighty-one, and Charlie shuddered as Don did, coming and losing his breath as Don pulled him close.

His hands stroked down Charlie's back, his nose in Charlie's shoulder. Don tucked Charlie against his side, and Charlie relaxed, worn and tired. He closed his eyes, feeling Don settle against him, and slept.

***

Charlie woke naked, alone, with the quilt tucked securely around him. For a moment he couldn't breath, stifled by the quilt and the lights, and the lack of Don. Then, he turned on his back. He inhaled and the smell of Don and himself and sex entered his body. He looked at his hand, still faintly stained with ink, and got up, and began to turn out all the lights.

The Business Card Part Three by missmollyetc 

Summary: One kick to get in the door, two seconds to step inside, three bullets to the chest.

Part 6 of Cardverse

Agents Sands, Potter, and Valdez were absolute fucking scum. It was the only logical explanation for their assignment to Don's shooting inquiry. Unfortunately, they were running the show, so the only positive outcome for Don in speaking his mind would be a certain personal satisfaction. Some people might have called that petty. Don was pretty damn sure they'd never met Agents Sands, Potter, and Valdez.

Every other sentence was an insinuation, the rest were out and out accusations. Poking and prodding at him until he could feel the blood pooling under his skin, darkening to bruises. They'd already talked to Terry. They'd interviewed the assault team's leader, and now they'd circled around to Don.

Agent Sands rested his folded hands on the table and leaned forward. He'd been playing 'good cop' for the last twenty minutes. The act had been thin since the first five.

"I know you've gone over this about a billion times before, Agent Eppes, but it would really help us--"

"Review your actions from the time you left the command vehicle until the incident of the shooting," Agent (Bad Cop) Valdez broke in.

His eyes flicked downward to the little plastic pouch at the edge of the table in front of Don. The pouch contained the fragments of three bullets. They seemed to have some kind of magnetic pull that sucked all the warmth out of the room.

Don straightened in his chair, and fought down the wave of irritation to keep his voice clear. They had his reports. They had _all_ the reports, even a few notes scrawled in Charlie's handwriting on loose-leaf paper. The only possible reason for this kind of tribunal was a fishing expedition. Even if this was procedure, the tone the board had adopted did not fill Don with confidence. Someone wanted him to screw up and admit to something he hadn't done.

"Before entering the house, we'd sighted all four suspects--" Don began.

" _Four_ suspects? You had no idea about the fifth man inside the house?" Potter looked up from her papers. She'd been the original good cop until Sands fell behind on the note-taking.

Don nodded, shifting gears without blinking. Never let the enemy see you blink.

"From the report given to us by the mother, we knew that Ballard had had an accomplice in the kidnapping, but no other indications showed that the man, later discovered to be Jason Kirkpatrick, was anything more than a temporary hire. Once agents placed all the _known_ suspects in the same area, I made the decision to enter the house."

"And put yourself in point position," Sands said. His ill-fitting suit exposed a good two inches of shirt cuff when he shifted in his seat.

Don nodded. "Yes, as the operation chief, I thought--"

"You'd grab some glory for yourself?" Valdez asked. He tapped a thick finger on top of an open file. "Says here you went right from the body to standing down a hostage situation. Quite the hero, aren't you?"

Don ground his teeth, breathing hard for a moment. Muzzle flash, three distinct bursts, appeared in his vision, but he spoke through it, pleased when his voice sounded as in control as he didn't feel.

"No, Agent Valdez, I did _not_ think that way. As team leader, I felt it was my duty to set an example of professionalism and dedication--"

Valdez brushed aside the rest of Don's sentence, and launched into a recitation of Terry's version of events, which Don had heard many times before. If the man ever let someone finish a thought, he must have counted it as a bad day. Don closed his mouth with a snap, and concentrated on controlling his breathing. Out of control behavior was a green light to more sessions with Dr. (You sure you won't call me Sam?) Weber.

Potter's pen scratched across the notepad in front of her. She'd been taking copious notes--Don had no idea what was so interesting--since Sands had taken over as Valdez's tag team partner. She was writing with one of those cheap ballpoints sold in packs of thirty for two bucks. Charlie went through a pack of those things a week.

Don swallowed heavily, and reflexively checked the corners of Potter's mouth for stains. He couldn't see any, but that didn't mean they hadn't been there. She could have washed recently, after all.

Charlie liked to take showers. He was very hygienic, got into all the corners--Don's throat tightened.

"Are we boring you, Agent Eppes?" Sands interrupted Don's train of thought.

Don snapped back to reality, grateful for the reprieve. "No, not at all, Agent Sands. I'm eager to continue," he said.

Sands nodded, not unkindly, but his sharp eyes didn't seem to miss Don's sudden flush. "Good, then would you please tell us what occurred when you and your team entered..."

***

Assistant Director Marlow's office was three floors and a world away from Don's own little corner of the universe. The space could have fit at least five agents, if one of them sat at an angle. Three chairs in front of the desk faced a large window and, on the opposite far walls stood two rows of wooden shelves, full of commendations and awards and, on one, an African Violet. The AD's desk was larger than Don and Terry's desks put together, and made of a rich dark wood. If Don leaned forward two degrees, he could see himself in the varnish.

Don did not lean forward.

He sat calmly, not fidgeting with his fingers, or tapping his feet (habits he'd discovered and ruthlessly crushed in sessions five through seven with Dr. Weber), while AD Marlow read through Don's personnel file. The board of inquiry had been forced to give Don the green light a week ago, but it was Weber's final report that could put the nail in his coffin if Marlow agreed with her findings. Not that whatever she dug up could hurt him, of course, since he'd been careful, but psychiatrists had their tricks.

"Agent Eppes, I want to tell you how impressed I've been with your work to date," AD Marlow said.

He closed the file in front of him, and looked Don in the eye. He was an older man in his mid-fifties, with bushy graying hair. For all that he reminded Don just a little of his father, the hard edge that sharpened AD Marlow's face warned him to take the interview very seriously.

Don sat up straighter, and resisted the urge to fix his tie. There was nothing wrong with his tie. Charlie had knotted it that morning.

"Thank you, sir," Don said. "I'm just doing my job."

"And I appreciate that," Marlow said. "I've looked over the files of your case, and the reports from your board of inquiry. They all show a man with a great future ahead of him in the FBI."

"Thank you, sir," Don said again.

He ignored the muzzle flash in front of his eyes with the ease of practice, and concentrated on what Marlow was saying to him. This was good, complimentary even. Things were going to finally get back to normal. Don felt a lessening of the pressure building up in his stomach.

"However, Dr. Weber reports that her sessions with you have been...less than constructive. She feels you have issues still to be worked out," Marlow said.

He looked him hard in the eyes, and Don did not look away. The pressure in his gut returned, churning with acid. He ground his teeth slightly, but nodded.

"I--can see where she might think that, sir," Don said. "And to some extent she might be right."

The interfering hag. How _dare_ she…do her job. Dr. Weber was simply accomplishing what she was hired for. Don could hardly fault her for that. Everyone was just…doing their jobs.

Marlow raised his eyebrows, and sat back in his chair. "Really," he said.

Don thought fast, very fast, to say the right thing. "Yes, sir. I mean…I shot a man, sir, and under the circumstances I--I believe it was the right thing to do. However, it's still something I'm going to have to live with, and I understand that. But it won't affect my job performance, sir. I'm ready to put this behind me and work."

He finished speaking, breathing calmly, refusing to let his mouth hang open to gulp the air he so desperately needed. It was more important to get back to work, to silence the whispers and Terry's damned pity. He rested his hands on his knees, and they were _not_ sweating.

Marlow brought his hands to his face, tapping his lower lip in thought. Don looked away, focusing on a point above Marlow's right shoulder. He tried projecting an aura of competence around him. Instead, he wound up rubbing the tips of his fingers together, and thinking about where those digits had been the night before.

Oh God, he needed to get back to work.

Marlow coughed, and Don jerked to attention. For a moment, Marlow simply looked at him, assessing his face and the way he sat while Don grew increasingly anxious and just as determined not to show it.

"It's a hard thing to kill a man," Marlow said, finally, with the ring of experience in his voice. "And harder still to live with it. Can I trust you in the field after this? Can I trust you with the lives of my other agents?"

Don nodded. "Yes sir. You can."

Terry was out in the field. David was out there. Charlie--Charlie…

AD Marlow stood and held out his hand. "Then I think you should get back to work, Agent Eppes."

Don got out of his chair and shook Marlow's hand. He felt lighter somehow, a smile curved his mouth as he let himself out of the office, leaving AD Marlow to his job so Don could go back to his. He punched the elevator button with a flourish, and practically bounced inside the carriage.

One floor down, Terry stepped into the elevator. Don clutched his hands behind his back and stole a quick look at the lighted numbers above the doors. This was the floor where he'd done his sessions with Dr. Weber.

"Hey," he said, glancing at her.

Terry was wearing blue again, a color she looked very good in, and her crepe blouse brought out the spark in her eyes. Her expression was friendly, but Don didn't like the way the corners of her mouth creased when she looked at him. His smile turned uncertain, and he avoided her gaze in favor of staring at the elevator doors.

"Where'd you come from?" she asked.

As if she didn't already know. Don rocked a little on his feet. Probably been talking to her friend Dr. Weber about him.

"AD Marlow's office, actually," he said, smiling stiffly.

Her expression turned serious. "How did it go?" she asked.

"Great! It went good, I'm…getting back to field work," he said.

Terry blinked rapidly, and her mouth opened a little. She coughed, and composed herself, but the damage had been done. She _had_ been talking to Weber. Don bit down on the inside of his cheek.

Or, maybe she knew. Maybe she knew about…him. She'd seen Charlie. She'd seen the pen hanging out of Charlie's mouth, and remembered their conversation and…

Don unclenched his fists and took a deep breath. That was stupid. Nobody knew, no one looked at two brothers and assumed they were…no one jumped to those kinds of conclusions.

He peeked out of the corner of his eye. Terry was obeying elevator etiquette and pretending he didn't exist, but every so often she looked his way. The elevator dinged on their floor, and he stepped out behind Terry into the empty outer corridor.

"Terry, listen…" He put his hand on her shoulder and released it immediately when she stiffened.

A cord knotted in his chest. Terry should never have been made to feel…like that because of him. She turned to face him, arms crossing under her breasts.

"I just…I just wanted to say…how sorry I am," he said. "I was out of line, _over_ the line really. I never--never wanted that for us. Between us."

He'd send flowers to her desk everyday for the next twenty years, if he thought it would help. Maybe slide the really plum cases her way, or…or anything. There had to be _something_ he could fix.

Her eyes, serious and detached, softened. She nodded her head and relaxed her stance, tucking a stray hair behind her ear. She was so beautiful.

"I understand why you did it," she said. "But I won't let it happen again."

"Thank you," he said. "I'm…I won't either. I was…I was wrong."

She nodded. "Yes, you were."

He looked down at his shoes, and back into her face. They stood awkwardly, where before there had only been friendship and mild flirtation. Something else good that Don had destroyed.

"And I'm glad you punched me," he said, breaking the silence.

Terry chuckled, glancing around them for non-existent listeners, and Don allowed himself to grin.

"You're turning out quite kinky, aren't you?" she asked. "Handcuffs, punching, what else are you into?"

He barked a laugh, and rubbed the back of his head. His hair was getting long again, it would be time for a haircut soon. "Yeah, well, just don't shop that around," he said.

"Our secret," she said. Terry pointed behind them to the forest of desks they called home. "Let's get back in the game, huh?"

Don followed her back to his desk and took a seat, turning to his inbox with a smile. He pulled out the topmost file in the stack, and flicked it open. Time for work, real work, the kind that took your whole attention. But first, a pen for note taking. He opened his desk drawer without looking, digging past the clumps of paperclips, and his fingers brushed hard metal.

He stopped, mindlessly staring at the file, while his fingers curved around the barrel of his gun, and clenched tight, his thumb pressing over the opening. He could feel the grease sinking into his hand, the weight of it bearing down on him.

This wasn't the gun he'd shot Kirkpatrick with. That had been longer, bigger, an assault rifle fit for breaking down doors and rushing a room full of combatants. This was his standard issue sidearm, worn for so long that he felt off kilter when he didn't have it holstered at his side. He hadn't been wearing it for awhile. Carrying a gun when he was only working in the office had seemed like overkill.

Now, he could start wearing it again. Slowly, he brought his hand out of the drawer, lifting out his gun, and setting it down in front of him. He hunched over, pretending to be reading the file while all the time his eyes couldn't leave the dark curves of the weapon on his desk.

***

Charlie was still in the apartment when Don finally walked in the door. He was sitting at the bar counter that separated the living room from the kitchen area, writing on a legal pad, surrounded by crumpled napkins, and two beat up notebooks Don recognized as his own. Occasionally, he would gnaw on the end of his pen before scribbling out another line of numbers.

Don shrugged off his jacket, and threw it on the counter. The jacket skittered across the surface and over Charlie's writing. Charlie jumped, and looked up quickly. He seemed surprised to find Don in his own home.

"You're back early," Charlie said. He pushed his hair off his forehead, eyeing Don from top to bottom.

"No, I'm back late," Don said.

Charlie blinked, and peered around for a clock Don didn't have. "What time is it?" he asked.

"Five after eleven," Don said. "Don't you think Dad might be worried?"

"Nah, he knows where I am."

Don stiffened, jaw clenching, and forced himself to relax. He walked to the fridge and took out a beer, popping the cap and taking a long swallow. Of course, Dad would know where Charlie was, and why should he care? He was with Don.

"So…how did work go today?"

Charlie's voice hesitated behind Don's back. He heard Charlie get off his bar stool, and walk around the counter, the slap of his bare feet against the carpet and then the linoleum of the kitchen. Don braced himself, but Charlie didn't touch him.

"Fine."

"Good, that's…good. Isn't it?"

If he turned around right now, Don knew what he would see. Charlie standing behind him, rubbing his hands, fingers intertwining against his stomach. His shoulders would be hunched underneath that thin, long-sleeved shirt. Hair in his eyes, and an uncertain mouth would complete the picture.

Don moved to stand over the sink. He clutched his beer tightly, condensation from the neck of the bottle beaded down his fingers. He looked in the empty basin. Charlie had forgotten to eat dinner again.

"You hungry?" he asked over his shoulder.

"No," Charlie said.

Don nodded to the wall, and drank his beer, drowning his taste buds in hops. He clicked his teeth around the neck of the bottle, and set it aside. Charlie was a fidgetting presence at his back.

"Don?"

It happened so fast. A rustle of fabric, the slap of feet against linoleum, and Charlie's hand was cupping the swell of Don's shoulder blade, right over the leather strap of his shoulder holster. Don clenched his hands along the metal rim of the sink, and breathed.

"You're wearing your gun again," Charlie said.

He let his head fall down, chin digging into his collar bone. Charlie pressed against his side, and a sick heat flowed through Don's body. His hand slid up and down Don's holster strap.

"That means they've agreed to let you work in the field again," Charlie said.

He choked back a laugh. "Yes! Yes, they're very happy with my work. I've got quite the career ahead of me."

"That's a good thing, isn't it?" Charlie asked softly. "Back to work, back to…back to what you really want to do. Catching the bad guys, and all that."

Charlie's other arm slipped underneath Don's and around his chest, tugging him sideways. Don pushed in the opposite direction, breaking his brother's hold. He kept moving until his back collided with the fridge.

Charlie's jaw flexed. He spread his hands, palms outward, and took a step towards Don. He was skinny, and angular, and needed a new wardrobe like Don needed a haircut. His feet were bare, long toes catching on the linoleum.

Don swallowed, staring down at his brother's toes, and the arches of his feet. The way his jeans brushed against his ankles when he stepped forward. Don realized his mouth was open, his lips wet from his tongue. His cock stirred beneath his pants.

Slowly, Charlie took another step, and another until his palms were against Don's shoulders. He leaned forward, and touched the tip of his nose to Don's. Their eyes were inches apart. Their breath commingled.

"You're a good agent," he said. His voice shook. "And a good man. An amazing, smart, strong man who can survive anything. And you're a good brother."

Don tried to turn away, but Charlie followed him. He crushed Don's mouth in his haste, swallowing the crazed, broken moan Don couldn't keep contained. The pressure, the acid, in his gut tore at him, ripping through his body and the spot that burned the hottest was his mouth, where Charlie's lips met his own.

Finally, Charlie let go, breaking off to let him breath. Don lay his head against the cold metal of the fridge. His hands gripped the edges of the fridge door to either side.

"You're going back to work," Charlie said. "You're going to _save_ people, like Emily and her parents."

Don clenched his mouth shut, striving for breath through his nose. He was afraid to open his mouth, afraid of what he might say, what he might do. Charlie stood close enough for his senses to prickle, but only his hands were actually touching him. The need for his brother to move closer scraped across his skin.

Charlie's eyes unfocused over Don's shoulder. His hands kneaded the flesh underneath them. Don bucked at the touch.

The movement drew Charlie back to him, and Don found himself strangely grateful not to be alone. Resolve hardened his brother's face, strengthening the line of his jaw. He leaned forward and kissed him once, softly, on the lips. Then, Charlie kissed him again, biting into Don's lower lip and suckling briefly.

His mouth pressed against Don's chin, then along the ridge of stubble lining his jaw to his ear. He nuzzled behind Don's earlobe, and Don gasped, hips jerking away from fridge. Charlie licked the spot, dragging his tongue across the sensitive hollow, and blowing a stream of air over the wet patch. His lips reattached themselves, and he sucked hard.

Don's breath caught and tore loose from his body in a ragged groan. His hands gripped the edges of the fridge so tightly he thought he could hear them creaking under the strain. "I wish you'd stop," he said, writhing against the fridge as Charlie bit down his neck. "Oh, God, I wish you'd stop. Why can't I _stop_?"

Charlie ignored him, bent forward at an odd angle so that Don thrust his erection against nothing but air. The arch of his back begged to be caressed, but Don couldn't get his hands to move. Charlie kissed the point where Don's shirt opened at his throat, then across to press his lips against the leather holster strap.

" _No_."

His hand clamped down on the back of Charlie's head and tore him away. He shook Charlie's head, the stupid curls bouncing over his fingers, and glared. His body thrummed with energy, chaotic, and edged in dark red.

Charlie's eyes widened, his pupils dilated. His breath came faster as Don gripped his head.

"It's a part of you," Charlie said, and tangled one hand in the strap. "I can't ignore it."

"Yes. You. Can," Don said, emphasizing each word with a headshake.

Charlie frowned, and fisted the strap. His other hand scratched down Don's chest and hooked into his waistband. He yanked Don away from the fridge, and into him. Caught off guard, Don stumbled forward.

They crashed to the floor. Don just managing to twist them around so he was on the bottom, cushioning Charlie's frame. He whacked his head on the floor, and light flashed in front of his eyes.

"Damn it, Charlie!"

"Sorry! Sorry," Charlie mumbled. "Forgot Newton's ninth law."

He groaned, and Charlie squirmed on top of him, unbuttoning his shirt and licking his nipples. Don's hands stroked along Charlie's back, over the soft cotton and then underneath to feel the delicate knobs of Charlie's spine. At his touch, his brother arched into Don's chest.

The wet circle of his mouth crawled across Don's skin, sucking at one nipple and biting the other until Don could no longer feeling anything except the press of Charlie's hip against his cock, the luxury of Charlie's tongue as it descended on his stomach. Don's hands smoothed around Charlie's shoulders, drawing his shirt over his head. Charlie straddled him and rose, pushing his ass into Don's crotch. He stripped himself of his shirt and tossed it up to land on Don's jacket.

Pain briefly choked him, but Don drank in the sight. His brother, his brother made him feel this way, and Don couldn't stop it. Almost didn't want to stop it when Charlie ran his hands down his own chest and undid his jeans, then Don's slacks.

Charlie wore boxers, the plain blue boxers Dad had given him for his birthday. His cock, long and red peeked out from the slit in front, wet at the head. Charlie locked eyes with him, made sure Don was watching as he reached into his pants and drew out his cock.

Don whimpered, pushing up against Charlie's ass, rocking him forward. Charlie put a hand on the floor for balance, crouching over Don's head. He shuddered, and Don looked down to see Charlie stroking himself, fisting his cock over Don's stomach.

His mouth, wet and red, hung open over Don's. Don reached out with his tongue and laved Charlie's full bottom lip. Charlie cried out, and shuddered. His eyes squeezed shut.

Don wrapped dead arms around Charlie's back, pulling him down to the floor. This was pain, this was pleasure that sank its fangs into his throat and poured poison into his veins. He cradled the back of his brother's head, and pressed Charlie's face to his shoulder.

Charlie keened when Don lay his free hand on Charlie's lower back. His fingers curved along the rise of Charlie's ass, pressing deeply into the muscle. Don kept his eyes on the ceiling while his brother writhed on top of him. The head of Charlie's cock was slick on his stomach. Charlie thrust forward, throwing his whole body against Don's. His face smashed into Don's shoulder, and he felt more than heard the snarl as Charlie's teeth latched on to the holster strap.

He shook his head at the ceiling, biting his lip hard enough to bleed. Charlie continued to fuck his fist, and every thrust forced Don to grip Charlie's ass harder. The feel of his brother above him made Don feverish, until the blood sizzled in his mouth, and his cock ached like a wound. He panted in Charlie's ear, trying to draw breath that didn't seem to be there anymore.

Charlie's head jerked upwards, dragging the strap with him as he howled and came, spurting onto Don's stomach. Don held on to him when he collapsed back down, muttering to himself and nuzzling into Don's shoulder, the leather still clutched in his teeth.

Finally, it seemed like Charlie could breathe normally again. His muscles relaxed, flowed against Don's tense body in one agonizing wave. His hands patted down Don's sides, pulling down his pants and underwear, leaving him exposed. Charlie let go of the strap, and crawled down Don's body, hair tickling his sensitized skin. He stopped to kiss Don's navel, tongue dipping inside and lapping at his own come.

Don groaned, and tried to thrust upwards, but Charlie's hands suddenly held him down, spanning his hips. He looked up into Don's face, a grin lurking at the corners of his mouth. Don shook his head, and Charlie ducked down, shoulders hunching, body curling over Don's erection.

A light sheen of sweat covered his body. Don's hands opened and closed at his sides. Charlie opened his mouth, and slowly lowered his lips to fit around the head of Don's cock. The tip of Charlie's tongue swiped across the slit, and Don jerked helplessly, choking back a yell as he came.


End file.
